ALL OF ME

"Give yourself fully to God. He will use you to accomplish great things on the condition that you believe much more in His love than in your own weakness."
~ Mother Teresa

I was doing my Bible study and the author referenced the story in Mark 6:33-34. In this story, Jesus stopped and taught a large crowd of people. After a while, the disciples wanted to send them away because they didn't have any food to give them. Instead of telling the crowd to go on their way, Jesus tells the disciples to feed them. The disciples are flabbergasted. They can see no practical solution to this problem - there are thousands of people and they can't possibly afford to buy even one piece of bread for all these people. It seems impossible.

Jesus sends them out to gather what people are willing to share. The disciples come back with only a few fishes and loaves of bread - certainly not enough to feed a multitude of people. They look at Jesus like He is slightly crazy - looking at the situation, the disciples do not see any way feeding everyone will happen. They look around at the sitatuation but they do not look up for a miracle.

What hit me was that there were many people there that day, but apparently, some people had already eaten the lunch they brought and only a few were willing to share everything they had. Jesus performed a miracle and fed all those people by taking what was willingly given. I find it interesting that He did not conjure up the food out of nothing. He certainly could have done that and maybe it would have seemed even more spectacular. But He didn't. Instead, He asked the people to give what they had. Then He blessed it and multiplied it.

There is a verse that says that God is looking to and fro over the earth for people who are willing to be whole heartedly devoted to Him. He is looking for people who will give Him all that they have, even if it seems puny and insignificant and not nearly up to the task.

I think so many times we look at what we have to offer, decide it isn't nearly enough and then don't offer it to God at all because it seems ridiculous that He could actually use us in any significant way.

But Jesus did not tell the disciples to collect enough to feed the multitude. He told them to feed the multitude. When the disciples sputtered that that was impossible - they didn't have the money to buy that much bread - Jesus told them to go look to see how much they DID have and bring it to Him.

That is what Jesus asks us to do today - to freely give Him our meager offerings even if they seem pitifully inadequate - and He will bless them and make them enough for the plans He has in mind. After all, the main goal is to bring glory to God. If you were more than enough, you wouldn't need Him, would you?
~ Blessings, Bronte