Relax, this is not a blog about dieting, high cholesterol or other such things. Nevertheless, many people talk about their stress level and describe the overwhelming content of their lives in terms of what’s on their plate. This expression is very useful because it gives a three dimensional image of how one’s life can become cluttered and overwhelmed with activities and responsibilities. Unfortunately, there is a temptation to approach life like an empty plate at an all you can eat buffet. Filling the empty space on your plate can become the unconscious goal rather than determining what and how much is necessary to provide adequate nourishment. On a daily basis our lives are bombarded with a series of invitations, requests and demands which compete for our attention, time and energy. Not only can we become overwhelmed with the busyness of too many responsibilities, we can also become disillusioned when these responsibilities seem unrelated to a larger and more meaningful theme. Believe it or not, each item on our food plates should have a purpose as well as a meaningful relationship to everything else on our plates. Just because a food item is available or desirable doesn’t mean it should be on your plate. If we eat until we’re full, we’ve already eaten too much. Although we understand this principle from a dietary perspective, we seem less able to make the application in our life commitments and pursuits.

Burnout is a word used to describe what happens when one loses meaning in the normal activities and responsibilities of one’s life. Burnout is often experienced in the forms of apathy and fatigue. When one is burned out s/he looks for opportunities to disengage from responsibilities. Burnout is sometimes the result of doing too much, which for some is the inability to say NO! Christians sometime forget that heaven is not earned by the number of good deeds one does. Sometimes we are more concerned with being efficient (doing things the right way) than we are being effective (doing right things). The former focuses on the outward ritual of successfulness, while the latter focuses on the inward passion of faithfulness.

On one occasion a lawyer asked Jesus what was the most important law. Jesus responded by quoting the familiar text in Exodus chapter 20 which basically states that we are to love God totally. Jesus also emphasized a second commandment which is to love each other. Jesus concluded his response by stating that there were no greater commandments than these. What a profound revelation to realize that learning to love without conditions is not a matter of simply doing things.  When I think about the magnitude of God’s love, I realize that my love must continually grow in order to faithfully obey these two commandments. In order for my love to grow, I must grow! Simply put, if I spent all of my time doing, I won’t have time to work on my being. What I do involves dealing with what must be on my plate. Shaping who I will become requires me to sometimes disengage from doing for the purpose of reflecting and listening to God. If my plate is full, I will have no place to retreat for those moments and seasons of personal and spiritual growth. There must be some room on our plates (in our lives) where there is no busyness,  room and time to walk around our plates – to assess and evaluate the course and continued purpose of our lives. Even Jesus “withdrew from the crowds” for the purpose of communing with God.

We don’t need larger plates to accommodate the inappropriate stuff we attempt to pile on them. Truth is, we can’t make our lives larger. We can, however, ensure that only the most important things in life occupy the center of our plates. Life can be divided into two basic categories which ultimately consist of stuff and people. We must learn to use stuff and love people. Our plates tend to become unmanageable and overwhelming when our response to stuff begins to resemble love and our response to people begins to resemble use.

In the thirteenth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus teaches a parable about the kingdom of heaven. In this parable a fisherman went out into the deep and cast his net. When he pulled the net up it was full of many things. The fisherman went back to the shore and sorted out the good things which he kept, from the bad things which he threw away. Our task each day is to examine what’s in our nets…what’s on our plates. We must sort through these things and empty our nets…our plates. After all, you can’t sort and fish at the same time, neither can you fish and sort at the same time. Note that the fisherman didn’t sort through the things in the net while he was in the deep. He returned to the peaceful shore where he could confidently assess each item. Finally he emptied his net. In other words he only kept good things, but he used the good things he kept! There were no bad things taking up good space.

Now is a good time to consider what’s on your plate. If stuff has been sitting there “forever and a day”, either put it to good use or get rid of it. As we grow older, our plate become smaller. An African teacher once said: “he who learns to eat well from a saucer will never require a dinner plate”. Ok, I made that up, but you get the point!