Putting All Your Eggs in One Basket
by Alexandra Copeland
I grew up in the south, where I
spent quite a bit of time with my grandmother. She had so
much wisdom and doled it out more than I would have liked at
times. In my youth, I didn’t always understand what she
meant. Sometimes her brand of wisdom sounded like riddles
that I didn’t find funny, but somehow, I knew ultimately
would teach me a lesson I had been too stubborn to learn. As
a teenager, I went through a stage she referred to as
“boy-crazy.”
It was a pretty rough start when I began dating—lots
of heartbreak and emotional extremes. The wisdom she gave me
back then and well into my adult years is not to put all my
eggs in one basket. It was a metaphor about my heart that
aggravated me as a young lady getting her first foray into
romantic love. Like everyone else my age, I wanted to dive
in heart first, and certainly didn’t want to be thinking
about eggs and baskets.
I’d let any boy that showed
me the least bit of attention into my heart. I was eager to
fall for them lock, stock, and barrel, and would do anything
I could to please them. My father had a reputation as a
no-nonsense guy, and fear of him in my small town prevented
any suitor from overstepping certain lines. But to the
extent that they could take advantage of me without
incurring the wrath of an overbearing father, they did. I
overlooked the disrespect and poor treatment. I paid no
attention to the many times it was written all over the wall
that I wasn’t being treasured, and I compromised my values
for their attention. I did anything I could think of to make
the person want to be in a relationship with me. It never
worked.
Lesson Number One
I internalized the rejection as me not being good enough, but as I grew older, much of what my grandmother said started to make sense to me. I hadn’t valued the preciousness of my own eggs. In my haste I had disregarded them and ignored the fact that some of them were very fragile. But in the right basket they would be incubated and nurtured so that according to my destiny, they would birth something extraordinary. So, lesson number one was to be discerning about the basket.
I internalized the rejection as me not being good enough, but as I grew older, much of what my grandmother said started to make sense to me. I hadn’t valued the preciousness of my own eggs. In my haste I had disregarded them and ignored the fact that some of them were very fragile. But in the right basket they would be incubated and nurtured so that according to my destiny, they would birth something extraordinary. So, lesson number one was to be discerning about the basket.
Discernment comes from wisdom.
God tells us in Proverbs 4:7(NKJV),
“Wisdom is the principal thing; Therefore get wisdom. And in all your
getting, get understanding.” Wisdom is a clarity of mind
to execute sound actions or decisions made from a body of
experience, right knowledge, and good judgment. Our Source
of wisdom is God, and He tells us that gleaning His brand of
wisdom is the wisest thing we can do. He instructs us to get
smart about our time and purpose within His Will—to pursue
wisdom in His Will and Purpose for our lives should be first
and foremost, but often we have another agenda.
Many of us look for baskets that
can’t secure our eggs, and we give ourselves license to
continue to make poor decisions and bad judgments in
relationships. We think we’re entitled because of youth, but
youthful lust is not much of an excuse, because many of us
are full-grown adults, mature in years, yet still making the
same relationship mistakes we did when we were much younger.
Lesson Number Two
I learned, and did so the hard way, how fragile my eggs were. Lesson number two of my grandmother’s wisdom is to come clean about the fact that we’ve got some weaknesses that cause us to misfire in our relationships. 1Peter 5:8(NLT) says, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” The enemy sniffs out our weaknesses. One of them is a willingness to place the good treasure of our heart into a basket of a person that can’t take care of their own eggs let alone someone else’s; We are often tricked this way. God knows our vulnerabilities and will help us to be strengthened in the areas where we’re weak, if we allow Him. Making our relationship with Him a number one priority, and not placing any individual higher on our list than Jesus Christ, will help us stand strong in His love and power.
I learned, and did so the hard way, how fragile my eggs were. Lesson number two of my grandmother’s wisdom is to come clean about the fact that we’ve got some weaknesses that cause us to misfire in our relationships. 1Peter 5:8(NLT) says, “Stay alert! Watch out for your great enemy, the devil. He prowls around like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” The enemy sniffs out our weaknesses. One of them is a willingness to place the good treasure of our heart into a basket of a person that can’t take care of their own eggs let alone someone else’s; We are often tricked this way. God knows our vulnerabilities and will help us to be strengthened in the areas where we’re weak, if we allow Him. Making our relationship with Him a number one priority, and not placing any individual higher on our list than Jesus Christ, will help us stand strong in His love and power.
Lesson Number Three
Lesson number three, the most important, is there’s only one basket suitable for the preciousness of our eggs, and it belongs to Christ. He will guard our hearts and keep our feet from falling. In Matthew 12:35, he tells us that a good person brings forth good things from the good treasure of their hearts. Our hearts have tremendous capacity when they are wonderfully nurtured, and they can only be fully nurtured through Jesus Christ. He feeds us through God’s Word, and when it’s time—when we’re adequately strengthened, we won’t look to put our eggs in anyone else’s basket but seek to steer them towards Jesus. We will do this because we understand that we must love others through Him, and when we learn to put this high-quality kind of love out there, we’ll honor and respect ourselves and receive back the abundance of the heart we’ve given. ■
Lesson number three, the most important, is there’s only one basket suitable for the preciousness of our eggs, and it belongs to Christ. He will guard our hearts and keep our feet from falling. In Matthew 12:35, he tells us that a good person brings forth good things from the good treasure of their hearts. Our hearts have tremendous capacity when they are wonderfully nurtured, and they can only be fully nurtured through Jesus Christ. He feeds us through God’s Word, and when it’s time—when we’re adequately strengthened, we won’t look to put our eggs in anyone else’s basket but seek to steer them towards Jesus. We will do this because we understand that we must love others through Him, and when we learn to put this high-quality kind of love out there, we’ll honor and respect ourselves and receive back the abundance of the heart we’ve given. ■
Scripture quotations
marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living
Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale
House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights
reserved.
Scripture taken from the New King
James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used
by permission. All rights reserved.
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