What Size is Your Pot?

If you’ve ever gone to a nursery to buy plants, you know that they sometimes have the same plant in several sizes. The smallest are usually in those flimsy, black plastic 4 packs. The next size may be a 3” pot, then may a gallon sized pot. All the same plant, but at different stages of maturity.

One day, I was out to lunch with a friend who had recently left our church to attend another church, where she and her husband would become the new youth pastors. She said she felt like, before finding Pastor Jerry and The Little Country Church, she was in one of those flimsy, black plastic containers. No depth, dried out, no room to spread her wings. Then after attending TLCC, she felt like she’d been transplanted to a bigger pot—finally…being fed with room to grow, room to breathe.

The whole conversation started when I asked how she felt about the move and the prospects of their new role. You see, as much as I would miss their presence in our church, I was excited for their new journey. That’s when she said that she feels like now she’s been taken out of that pot and planted in the ground, where her growth and maturity have endless possibilities. No longer confined by the edges of a pot, she now has a place to set down roots for herself and her family and to see what God has in store for them.

When plants are kept in the same pot or a too-small pot for very long, they become root bound, which means the roots consume the whole space, leaving no room for the soil, which provides the nutrients, and eventually, they will die. As believers, it’s good to find a church, put down roots and get connected. But we should never confine ourselves to the point where we can’t break free from the walls of our pot, exploring more ways to be used of God, spreading our roots into new and fertile soil.

If you’re feeling a little dried up or stuck with no where to go, maybe it’s time for a new pot!