October 30 - What Do You Have?

 Read today’s texts first: Job 21; Mark 5,6

 MAXIMize YOUR DAY

When small things, like a little boy’s lunch, are surrendered
to a big God, thousands of hungry souls can be fed. 

What was the lesson of the fives loaves of bread? Apparently the disciples didn’t get it, at least not at first, but perhaps we can see it better from our vantage point (6:51,52). Mark, inspired by the Holy Spirit, gives us a clue when he writes, “how many loaves do you have?” (6:37). A miracle often begins with what we have and what we are willing to give up. And it doesn’t take much!

Sometimes we bemoan how little we have. Certainly Job is troubled by his losses while wicked people around him seemed to have so much (21:7). But he will learn, as will the disciples, the truth in the words of that old hymn “little is much when God is in it!”  Whether it’s the staff of Moses, a widow’s two mites or a little boy’s lunch, when these small things are surrendered to a big God, thousands of hungry souls can be fed.

Jesus was now trying to teach His disciples how to multiply ministry (6:7). If one man tried to divide a lunch to feed 5,000 plus (the men numbered 5,000, plus all the women and children - 6:44), it would take him well past supper and probably closer to breakfast the next day. But He divided the small lunch to His 12 disciples who took it to each group seated on the ground, who may have continued to divide it from there.

As I looked up the words to the “Little Is Much” hymn, I noticed the writers, Kittie and Frederick Suffield, were from Sunnyside Wesleyan Methodist Church in Ottawa, Canada. Coincidentally, the pastor’s son was George Beverley Shea, whom they worked with as evangelists and whom later became the main soloist for Billy Graham. What a wonderful illustration of that song, as this simple man from a small church in our nation’s capital, eventually sang live in front of more people than anyone else in history (that includes Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson). It helped that George lived to the ripe age of 104  (Check out his duet with Guy Penrod when George was still a young 102 year old: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSIZTXHy7PQ).

“Lord, may I learn and live out the lesson of the five loaves:”

Little is much when God is in it!
Labour not for wealth or fame.
There’s a crown and you can win it,
If you go in Jesus’ name.