Foooooooood!

Why is it that every time I read the story about the Feeding of the 5000 I learn something new?  I love it!  So this is today's reading.  Let me explain some thoughts.

I love how God hides gems in His Word.  The more I grow and delve into it and go deeper, the more He reveals to me.

So when I was younger, this story was just like an awesome miracle explaining how great God was in being able to make a packed lunch into a feast for 5000 people!

Then being a bit older, I discovered about how if we give what little we may think we have to God, He can take it and use it and multiply it for His glory and bless 1000s of people!

Then even older still, I was really struck by the 'breaking of the bread'.  God often has to break us in order to use us.  It's natural.  It's often hard.  But it's often one of the many ways God can use us.

Today I'm struck by the whole idea of feeding.  There were 1000s of starving people, and Jesus' priority with the small packed lunch was simply to feed them.  It wasn't spiced up with herbs and spices, or marinated or fluffed up with fancy wording on a menu.  It was simple food - bread and fish, but food that was fulfilling.

Likewise, we too need to feed people.  There are hungry people in our world - be it hungry for love, acceptance, belonging, answers, fulfillment and so on.  Rather than fluffing up Christianity, packaging up Jesus in a nice little box with a gift tag, spicing it up with our own twist or whatever, we just need to feed people with the truth about Jesus Christ.

But how?  How can we do this?  Well no-one force feeds a child, they offer them a fork with food on.  Sometimes the child refuses to eat.  So we can try again.  Sometimes they still refuse to eat, so perhaps we try a different approach.  Sometimes children are full and don't want to eat any more.  Sometimes they are hungry and can't wait for the next bite.  Likewise with baby Christians or even those who don't believe, we need to be gentle in our approach, break things up into bitesize, digestable pieces, allow them to dictate how much they take in, not force things, be patient, clear up mess and so on.  Perhaps the most some people can digest is knowing that there is a listening ear, or someone to help out with their shopping.  Perhaps other people are starving and are quick to digest whatever we feed them.  Some interesting thoughts.

Finally, if we are well fed, by receiving spiritual nourishment from church, reading our Bible, communicating with God, then perhaps we will have left overs which we can use to feed others.  If every person who was spiritually 'full up' shared their food with other people, just think how fast we could share the good news about Christ.  So totally awesome!  Bring it on!


Read Matthew 14v1-21 for more.