Don’t get Squashed

Monday night I was so upset. I have been working since July to grow squash and zucchini. Now, I live in an apartment so Jonathan built me this awesome plant box for my veggies, and the box sits on my porch. Well about a week ago I noticed that my squash plant was having some trouble. The stem was really weak and it couldn’t hold the plant up, so the leaves and veggies were falling over and the squash weren’t growing. I told Jonathan I thought we needed to build a separate box for the squash because it was competing with the zucchini plant, and it wasn’t winning. Well we both work an insane amount of hours, so we didn’t have a chance to build the box. I put some supports under the stem to try and help until we could get the box built. Well…Monday night I walked out on the porch and the stem had snapped. The squash plant was dead. I was so upset. All I could think about was how much time I had spent pruning, watering, and helping these plants grow, and now its dead. No squash. Nothing. Of course, Jonathan kept reminding me it would all be ok, and we could just try again, but that’s logical and I was having none of it. I watered my zucchini plant, and just began to talk to Jesus. The Holy Spirit quickly dropped this thought in my spirit and I can’t shake it: “Nothing will kill your purpose faster than trying to compete with someone else”

Philippians 2:3-4 says, “Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interests in others too.”

Ouch. That is so against my human nature. My human side tells me to be the best, win, look out for me. Now lets be clear, there is nothing wrong with being the best or with winning, but when we start stepping on other people to get where we want to go that is when we have crossed the line.

God has given each and every person a specific purpose and calling; however, we often get distracted by someone else’s purpose and become jealous. They might be further along, or it may seem more fun or easier. So we focus on trying to be better than them rather than living out our own purpose. My squash was overpowered because it wasn’t in its own lane. Competition killed it. And competition is going to continually kill our purposes if we don’t get a handle on it.

Here’s another thought: Competition is always born out of insecurity. If you find yourself competing with others, or becoming jealous of others – you are probably dealing with insecurity. Good news is Jesus knows how to fix that, and He desperately wants to. He wants you to know who you are – because when you know who you are, and who He is, you don’t need to compete. Why? Because you realize there is enough room at the table for everyone.

Jesus has a big table my friends. He has a lot of food, and tons of dessert. We don’t have to shove each other out of the way to make room. The table just gets bigger, and the food just multiplies. Run the heck out of your lane. The world needs you to. Don’t be a squash and get squashed – be a zucchini. That plant has strong roots and a really strong stem, and the result is really yummy veggies!

xoxo

Katie