"Can't Pour From an Empty Bucket", But What Are You Filling Up On?

There is an oft repeated saying that "You can't pour from an empty bucket" -- you can't serve if you don't have your own spiritual reserves full enough to be able to give.  Like Mosiah said:

"And see that all these things are done in wisdom and order; for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength. And again, it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize; therefore, all things must be done in order" (Mosiah 4:27).

But . . . Just like Joseph Campbell's saying "Follow your bliss", (which he later lamented should have been "follow your blisters"), this could be misconstrued to excuse selfishness and justify lukewarmness in the laws of sacrifice and consecration.

I remembered what Jesus taught at the Sermon on the Mount about inputs and outputs:

9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?

10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?

11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

 ...

16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

A bucket is really only as good as its contents.  What you fill it with is just as important as how full it is; contents matter just as much as volume.

How can you give your somone bread if you fill up with stones?  How can you give them fish if you fill up with serpents?  Grapes if filled up with thorns?  Figs if filled up with thistles? Good fruit if filled off a corrupt tree?

You can't give something from your bucket that you didn't fill it up with. . .