Tend to Your Own Plate

           

When you grow up in a family of six children, there’s always something going on—jockeying for your favorite piece of fried chicken on the platter, irritations with the cleanliness of a roommate, whose night it is to wash or dry dinner dishes, just who took all the hot water and messed up the bathroom before you got in there yourself.  The list is endless.

Sometimes conflicts made their way to the dinner table; sometimes they didn’t. No matter whether they did or didn’t, my father had a way of squelching the backbiting and blaming, especially when we got into each other’s business.  It was a simple phrase that went right to the point. “Tend to your own plate,” he’d say. Five words said in Dad’s style ended any grumbling. You might mess with a sibling, but you just didn’t mess with Dad.

Tend to your own plate. Did you know that Jesus said that to Peter? Well, sort of. When Jesus told Peter about his future, Peter couldn’t resist checking out what was on John’s plate. And Jesus said, “Tend to your own plate.” Well, really, he said, “If I want him (John) to remain until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me” (John 21:22, NIV).

Sometimes I have a problem tending to my own plate. I don’t like what’s served up—it’s boring, it’s overloaded with what I don’t like, and perhaps worst of all, it’s not as appealing as what’s on someone else’s plate.  The grass may always seem greener on the other side, and doesn’t someone else’s plate often look more attractive, too?  How many times have you been to a restaurant and, like me, checked out what companions ordered and wished you’d ordered the same? I’ve done it more often than I’d like to recall. Plate-checking isn’t just about food. How often do you or I look at other people’s lives and say or think: “Wish we could trade places,”  “How did they do that?” “How come she (he, they) got this or that?” I’m embarrassed to even consider the times I’ve been guilty!

God is fully aware of what he puts on our plates. Sometimes it may not seem very appetizing. As our spiritual appetites grow, however, we learn that what he has served will be good for us, no matter what it is. Whenever I get to tending someone else’s plate, the familiar words of my father come back to me: “Tend to your own plate.” That’s what I need to do with gladness in my heart and confidence in my heavenly father, who always serves up exactly what I need.