7-Day Practical Faith Blog: Jesus Works with What You Bring

Cecil is on holiday this week. Here is an evergreen post from the Cecil Taylor Ministries archive.

Matthew 14: 13-21

Jesus had healed many and taught thousands of people all day in a remote location. Now it was getting late, and his disciples reasoned that the crowd was surely hungry. They appealed to Jesus to send the people away to find dinner.

Jesus replied, “You give them something to eat.” Led by Andrew, they produced five loaves of bread and two fish. Jesus said, ‘Bring them here to me.”

Blessing the food, Jesus performed a miracle. He distributed the fish and bread, and it was enough to feed everyone, with twelve baskets left over!

This passage reminds us that despite what we think, what we bring to Jesus is enough. The problems of the world seem overwhelming. But we can help someone, some individual. Perhaps we think our resources, our talent, our position, our influence, our capabilities, our willpower, our goodness, our love is not enough. Jesus tells us, “Be faithful. Give me something to work with, and I can make things happen.”

I feel like we can get stuck, thinking that we’re incapable of whatever task is before us. All Jesus requires is that we go forward.

This can be the smallest thing, but it can be something bigger. While teaching a young adult class in my church a few years ago, we decided to try to help a minority church whose sanctuary had burned down. They were repairing the rest of the damage at their church and turning their fellowship hall into a sanctuary. When we first showed up, we numbered six fairly unskilled people with $200 to donate to the cause plus some of our Saturday. Through the action of the Holy Spirit, the effort kept growing and growing over a year span until we eventually attracted 45 people to spend more than 1,000 hours helping the church, and they and others had donated more than $15,000 to restore what was broken.

I learned from that episode that whatever we bring to Jesus is enough. We simply need to step out in faith and see what he can do with the little we bring.