I’m a CBB. That’s a compulsive banana buyer. I’m not sure how or why. But I think it may have started at the kick-off of my great smoothie fixation of 2022, when bananas were essential to my daily diet plan.
Fast forward to 2025 and no one in my family really eats bananas (ahem, myself included). I mean, I intend to eat them. And I wait expectantly each week for the day my husband and children will recognize the esteemed banana’s nutritional value and choose to eat one… ya know, instead of Fudge Rounds or popcorn.
Uh yeah. They don’t.
And so each week I order my good-intention cluster of bananas. And each week, shamefully, I throw the majority of them in the trash. It hurts me to be so wasteful… but obviously not enough to reap the lesson because two days later there I am: putting another bunch of bananas in my online grocery cart.
It’s a problem. Like, seriously. There are 14 bananas in a bowl on my kitchen counter right now. FOURTEEN! And I’m sure more than half of them will end up in the garbage. (If you’re about to tell me to freeze them, let me stop you right there. I have a dozen more in my freezer. I told you. I have a problem.)
But this morning my CBB issues gave me a serious spiritual epiphany. (Hang with me here.)
See, in that bowl on the counter, I have the very super duper ripe bananas from last week. And in the same bowl I’ve just added the still-somewhat-greenish new bananas from this week. If you’re a CBB like me, you know what’s about to happen in that bowl.
(Actual photo of bananas on my counter.)
Green bananas, while hanging with golden ripe bananas, will ripen faster. It has something to do with the ethylene gas bananas emit over time. It breaks down cell walls, converts starches to sugar, and decreases acids (i.e. it ripens all the fruit in its gaseous little path). My ripe bananas are influencing the green bananas, just by sharing the same space.
And as I was staring at that bowl this morning, realizing I needed to eat a banana or three or four today, the whole thing got me thinking (as these things often do)…
The last four months my husband and I have been doing relief work from Hurricane Helene. We’ve helped clean up and rebuild homes. But you know what else we’ve done? We’ve met literally hundreds of Christians from all over the country who have traveled here to give their time, sweat (and sometimes blood—yikes), to help strangers in need.
And in fellowshipping with these brothers and sisters, my green banana self has been ripened. Sweetened. I’ve listened to countless testimonies and conversion stories. I’ve hugged strangers who became family. And I’ve joined hands in circles of believers who lifted up our Savior in some of the most beautiful prayers I’ve ever heard. We’ve cried together, laughed together, and shared the gospel together.
The old saying by Jim Rohn goes, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
Essentially, you mimic the other bananas in your bowl. You ripen when you hang with the right kind of fruit. Or, you rot when you hang with the wrong kind of fruit. Your fellow bananas matter.
Sometimes we can’t choose the fruit in our bowl. We have to collaborate with an unpleasant coworker in the next cubicle. Or we get put on a VBS committee with that one woman from church who just grates our nerves. Maybe we are called to help or take care of someone who is ungrateful or difficult.
We encounter rotten bananas on the daily.
But if our core inner circle is fortified with loving Christians, they bring out the best in us, even in these difficult situations. Proverbs 27:17 says, “Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” On the other hand, I Corinthians 15:33 reads, “Do not be deceived: bad company ruins good morals.”
Every day we should check our bowl of fruit. If everyone around us is looking rotten, guess what? No matter how green our peel is right now, we’re next. And if the fruit on the table is looking better than the fruit on the counter, it might be time to switch bowls.
I know it’s a silly analogy… One might even say it’s a bit bananas. (Okay. It was low-hanging fruit. I had to. Ha!)
But the principle remains true. Let’s surround ourselves today with the kind of encouraging, shining influences who bring out the best in us. Let’s find people with whom we can serve and sharpen. And let’s strive for the ripened sweetness that will reflect God’s light and love to our fellow man.
And now… it’s time to go eat a banana.
Verse of the Day:
“Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness?” 2 Corinthians 6:14
Quote of the Day:
“If you look at the people in your circle and you don’t get inspired, then you don’t have a circle. You have a cage.” -Nipsey Hussle