Picture a dinner plate. It has
plenty of room for an entrée, a couple side dishes, and maybe even a roll. The
entrée is served—and it’s pretty substantial—but okay; after all, you’ve got a
healthy appetite. Then the first side is served, but you notice that it seems
to be spreading out and taking up more of the plate than you had anticipated.
You decide to squeeze in another item, which unfortunately begins to ooze over
the side of the plate. Forget the roll—this plate is full.
Now picture this same unarguably
full plate is suddenly snatched up from your dinner spot—you look up to see
that your table is now fully surrounded by people who weren’t there a moment ago
(Did I put those extra leaves in there?);
suddenly your plate is being passed around
the table from one person to the next, and each one is piling a large scoop of
some food item onto it—green beans, jello, mashed potatoes, rice, cole slaw,
fried chicken, deep-fried shrimp, tacos (Wait—where’d
all this extra food come from?). You want to say something, but you can’t.
As if in a dream, you are unable to speak. You want to cry out, ‘Stop! I can’t
handle all that!’ But it just keeps piling…to your great horror.
Now the plate is piled high, gravy
running into jello, and cole slaw merging with cottage cheese. Picture everyone
watching as though they expect you to sit down and somehow consume this
monstrous mound of mush—because now it’s truly impossible to tell where one
cuisine ends and another begins. It’s a mess, it’s distasteful, and it’s simply
too much!
This is the picture of our lives
sometimes. Our plates are, by all reasonable standards, full—financial
responsibilities, children’s sporting events, maintaining a household, cars
breaking down, fall-out from your kids’ poor choices; keeping laundry
clean—dinners made—schedules on track. Perhaps a relative dies, a family member
becomes ill—or some other unexpected crisis hits at the worst time ever. Just
when you’re trying to figure out how to deal with one trial—and the
accompanying stress—another is right on its heels. Stress builds until
something has to give, one way or the other. Circumstances have to
change—conflicts have to be resolved—your heart cries out, ‘No more!’ And just then…another calamity
hits, filling your proverbial plate to the point of near hysteria. What will you do?
If you’re like me, you will first
feel guilty. Why can’t I handle this?
You’ll begin to panic, but a perpetual state of panic feels a bit too much like
a heart attack, so you’ll switch gears, taking you on a quick, full-body slide
into depression. Like a criminal regretting his crime, you sit in your would-be
cell and retrace the steps that have led you to this point. How on earth could this have happened?
After all, you were doing so well. Sure, life had thrown you some curve balls,
but you were coping. What’s more, you were praying to the Lord—and even trusting him. Others had noticed that He
was obviously strengthening you, giving you grace, carrying you. So just how
did you manage to plummet into this pit?
You looked at the plate.
And knowing there was no way to
deal with it, you ran from the banquet of life…just as Jesus showed up at the
table. Forgetting to be a gracious host, you instead left your most important
guest to get his own drink. Which is okay, because He came not to be served but
to serve. Those uninvited guests—those that would fill your plate and keep
filling it—fade into the shadows at the presence of the one who has the power
to redefine the entire meal.
If you are wise enough to return to
the table, you’ll find that your plate has been returned to its original full
state. As you sit down, you have a silent fear that it will overfill again. You
look into Jesus’ eyes, and He reaches out and places His hands on yours. When
you look back at your plate, you see it as not “full” but abundant; just look at all you’ve been given and how wonderfully
good it is!
Embarrassed to ask because you
showed up late to the meal but too curious not to, you look into Jesus’
peaceful eyes. “Lord, what of the extra things on my plate? Everything was
piled together.” He waves His hand, and now you can see that in front of Him
are all the unwanted things that were piled on your plate; now they’re on His.
He slowly, miraculously separates them, placing them on separate smaller plates
and arranging them carefully on the table. “But Jesus, why are they still here?”
He lovingly and patiently smiles. “Child,
these are the circumstances of your life—they are still a part of your table,
but I have arranged them in a way that is good.”
“I don’t understand.”
“They are still a part of your
life, but you are no longer bound by them. You could never manage that entire
plate, nor were you ever expected or designed to. Now, as each circumstance is
passed your way, you will realize that I have taken on the burden of the matter—and
you’ve only but to ask me what your part is. You don’t have to put it on your
plate.”
“But I still have to deal with
these things. How can they not be on my plate?”
“Because—though they may be a part
of your life—they are not your portion. I am the one who will give you beauty
for ashes and turn your mourning into dancing. Allow me to be the master of
your banqueting table.” (“ And we know that in
all things God works for the good of those who love him, who[a] have been called according to
his purpose” (Romans 8:28)).
And therein lies the key. If Jesus
is our true master, we won’t see an ever-piling plate—but as He touches our
vision, we will see Him orchestrating the circumstances of our lives to an
ultimate good. We will no longer need to question, ‘How can I take any more?,’ because He has taken it all. Do you see the difference? It’s not that He
will remove the circumstance—though sometimes He may—but it’s that He bears the
burden of what to do with it so that we don’t have to. He reorders and
redistributes the contents of our plates so that we can learn, grow, and not
lose sight of the abundant life He has given. Because of His great love for us.
When truly our lives belong to Jesus, it is no longer our table but His. No
longer our burdens to carry but His.
“ He
brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love” (Song of
Solomon 2:4).
“Give your burdens to the LORD, and he will take
care of you. He will not permit the godly to slip and fall” (Psalm 55:22, NLT).
May your plate be ever-abundant,
running over with the blessings and wisdom of the one who knows all things—and redeems
all things.
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