"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. . .

• You can't pour out faith if filled by fear (in any of its guises).
• You can't pour out hope if filled with cynicism or discouragement.
• You can't pour out charity and compassion if filled with selfishness, holding back to preserve one's lifestyle / avocation / hobbies / social standing , or vain ambitions.
• You can't pour out gratitude if filled with entitlement, victimization, or unrealistic expectations.
• You can't pour out peace when filled with disorder, confusion, and chaos.
• You can't pour out balance when filled with personal excess, abuse of power, or unbridled passions.
• You can't pour out virtue when filled with vice (i.e. virtue taken to excess or separated from its necessary companion virtues).
• You can't pour out patience when filled with anxiety or an insistence that your lives follow your timetable not His.
• You can't pour out health if filled by gluttony or unhealthy habits.
• You can't pour out salvational truths if filled with self-deception or an excessive preoccupation with fantasy or any "virtual" reality.
• You can't pour out "living water" when filled with a "pint of crème", (which has curdled and spoiled by now).
• You can't pour out abundance to bless others if filled by embezzling from and neglecting your own family.
• You can't pour out tithes and offerings to the sick and afflicted if filled with filthy lucre..
• You can't pour out time to serve others if filled up with time or resources that belongs to someone else
• You can't pour out a "deep soul satisfaction" if filled up with idleness, distraction, or obsession with the "lesser things".
• You can't pour out freedom if filled with bondage, foolish traditions, sin, or anything else that voluntarily relinquishes agency.
• You can't pour out a glimpse of our celestial home when filled up with the cares of this world.
• You can't pour out spiritual "oil" (ala 10 Virgins) to someone else, no matter how filled with it you may be.
• You can't pour out Heaven when filled up in Babylon.