Give God Your Loaves and Your Fishes

I accepted a 31 Day Writing Challenge before the beginning of October. The challenge was to write each day in October and post it on this site. It was a challenge I believed God wanted me to accept so out of obedience I did, but with doubt that I would complete it. I’m happy to report, with God’s help, I did write each day, even going to Day 32 because I didn’t feel my story was complete.

I admit that, compared to other writers, I don’t write very well. But as the month progressed, I noticed comments from the few readers I had that revealed to me how God was using what I wrote for His good purposes. 

As I pondered how God was able to use my meager skills, I thought about the little boy who offered his lunch to Jesus. Jesus and His disciples had a crowd of more than 5000 hungry people to feed and they were nowhere near a market to buy food. But Jesus was able to take the little boy’s meager lunch, 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, and multiply it to feed everyone with an abundance of food and even had some leftovers! 

Just as Jesus multiplied the little boy’s lunch, God “multiplied” the crumbs of my writing, as imperfect and amateur as it was. But God is Almighty God and He can take anything we offer, even the crumbs, and multiply it into abundance. 

Did the little boy understand the implications of giving up the little lunch his mother so lovingly packed for him? I doubt it. Did I think God could use my writing to benefit others? Didn’t cross my mind! But Jesus didn’t ask the boy to feed over 5000 people. He just accepted and used the little the boy was willing to give. God doesn’t ask us to perform miracles ourselves, He just asks for our obedience as He works through us. We must willingly give what little we have and trust Him with the results. 

© 2019 Robin R King

John 6:1-15 (NIV)

6 Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), ² and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. ³ Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. ⁴ The Jewish Passover Festival was near.⁵ When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” ⁶ He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.⁷ Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”⁸ Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, ⁹ “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”¹⁰ Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). ¹¹ Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.¹² When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” ¹³ So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.¹⁴ After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.” ¹⁵ Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.”