CoffeeTime: “DON’T PUT ALL YOUR EGGS IN ONE BASKET”

Everybody has heard that cliché.

I am saying something a little different. Don’t use all those eggs in your basket just for you - using your gifts and abilities only for your needs and wants.

“I take care of me, and eva’body else needs to take care of themselves. No way that takin’ care of them is my job!”

But those eggs you are protecting so fiercely with that attitude? Well, think back to those Easter egg hunts as a child, when some of the eggs were never located. Later on, when they turned up, those things were rotted and stinking. Of if they had been there long enough, they looked like they belonged in a museum for petrified things. Unused eggs can only last just so long.

Please do not misunderstand, I am not saying that you should give all your eggs to everyone else and leave none for you. Of course you need to take care of you. The Bible teaches that a person who doesn’t know how to love himself cannot really love others. But life is meant to be shared with those around us. Hoarding your eggs leads to loneliness in life. So if you aren’t a fan of loneliness, share your eggs.

Spend some time with a person who has lost their one special loved one, and who now does nothing for anyone else. Most of the time, you will hear a lonely, purposeless person talking only about themselves and their problems. Self-centeredness is a deadly bullet that can kill the very heartbeat of the one who is desperately seeking to find fulfillment and happiness. Talk about focus gone awry. They are doing the very thing that is causing their problem.

Folks, it’s not a wise decision to depend upon one human relationship to supply all the answers to your every dream, desire and want. To rely on that one person to make your life worth living. In the end, when for some reason they can’t be your all-in-all, you are left totally alone and hurting. No one person should hold that much sway over your happiness. That is too big of a burden for them, and they shouldn’t have to carry it for you. Plus, it gives that person waaaaay too much control over your life.

For your sake and loved ones, center your life on a relationship with God. The One Person who will gladly share any heavy burden and will never use His relationship with you to manipulate and control. He always leaves your decisions up to you, even when He knows the consequences will be devastating. But at the same time, He will never desert you when you are hurting with those very consequences.

Your eggs were given to you for a reason. To connect you with others. Fry them, scramble ‘em, poach or bake them, but please, pull them out of your Just For Me Basket and use ‘em.