How Full is Your Plate?

Surely you have done it. Gone through the line at a pot luck supper (or pitch in as they call it here) and by the time you get to the end of the line, you are amazed at how full your plate is!! Then it is time to hit the dessert table, and if you are like me, you cannot get just one piece of cake or pie….but a sliver of many!!

I was having lunch with a precious new friend this week and I was amazed at all of the things she did well. She is married to a pastor, has four children, leads worship, teaches middle school girls on Wednesday nights, leads a children’s choir, and works. Her plate is definitely full….and not a salad plate at that!!

Currently my “plate”, on the other hand, is relatively empty. I have to say that is one advantage of moving…it makes it a lot easier to ‘clean your plate’ off!! Just a few short months ago my plate was so full that the only way a green pea would fit was to mush it into the mashed potatoes!!

How does it happen? How do our plates get so full? After all, we start off with an empty plate. We don’t get huge portions of anything. Just a spoonful of this and a taste of that. That, my dear friend, is exactly how it happens. We keep adding and adding and don’t realize how full our plate has become until we sit down at the table and see it for what it really is. And....it definitely is a lot easier to add items to our plates than to take things off once they are there!

As strange as it seems to say it, this 'empty plate' season is somewhat difficult for me. I don't want to have an 'empty plate' BUT I want to be so wise about determining what goes on to my plate!! I want to say be able to say what Jesus said at the end of His life “I brought glory to you here on earth by doing everything you told me to do.” (John 17:4 NLT)

I do not want to add commitments out of guilt or boredom or desperation but out of God’s leadership and His gifting and passion! I desperately want to make sure I make the right decisions about what is going to go on my plate!! Not put something on there that just looks good but something that is good. Not something that others say is wonderful but what God says is wonderful.

Father, I ask that you would show each of us when our plate is too full. Show us how to remove those commitments and responsibilities that are on our plates because someone other than You wanted it on there. Give us the courage to put on our plates only the ministries and responsibilities that You want Us to do. In Jesus' name, Amen.