What Are They Among So Many?

The new year is quite close now, just around the corner of a few days so to speak. What will we do with this new beginning as we look in hope to our Lord? Give?

Philip answered Him, “Two hundred denarii worth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may have a little.” One of His disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to Him, “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two small fish, but what are they among so many?” (John 6:7,8,9)

Our little bit of giving often seems swallowed up among so many. We look out and desire to help but our meager resources seem so little against a need that is so great. In the feeding of the multitude, John tells the tale of how one lad brought forward his lunch as a gift to the Lord. Even the disciples saw the human problem, "...but what are they among so many?" We know the rest of the story though, Jesus took and blessed the lad's lunchbox and many thousands of people ate and were satisfied, and then the leftovers totaled much more than the offering. How did He do that?

Sometimes I wonder if they let the boy take the 12 baskets back to his mom. One lunch, thousands fed, 12 baskets of barley loaf pieces left over. And the Lord said, "Gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost." Far more leftover than we started with, and "so that nothing is lost," He says. I love the Lord for His understated humor.

How often, I wonder, have I held tightly to my 'lunch', afraid of losing it, and lost the blessing of the twelve baskets? How many churches have done the same thing? For all have been stingy before the Lord, forsaking the blessings of His bounty, by way of that human question: "But what are they among so many?" Doubt no longer, believe!

In His holy name,
Bucky