The sun is dipping low, painting everything gold. The grass is soft under thousands of feet, pressed flat beneath families huddled close together. Mothers are whispering to children to sit still. The air hums with quiet hunger, the kind that grows in bellies and beneath skin, deep in the place where hope lives. And there is Jesus, standing with a small lunch in his hands five loaves, two fish looking up, giving thanks.

The Story

They had come for healing. They had come for words that felt like water to a thirsty soul. They had come because something about Jesus made them believe they might leave whole. What they had not come for was a banquet. No one expected dinner. Not way out here, not after the long walk, not with so many people. But Jesus sees them. Really sees them. He sees their hunger, their humanity, their exhaustion, their doubt.

The disciples practical men, worn thin from ministry look out at the crowd and shake their heads. Send them away, they say. Let them find their own food. Let them fend for themselves. But Jesus says something different. Something wild and unreasonable. You give them something to eat.

What follows is the kind of moment that turns the world inside out. A boy offers his small lunch. Bread meant to feed one. Fish packed for a single day. It is not enough. Of course it is not enough. But in the hands of Jesus, enough does not matter. He takes it. He blesses it. He breaks it. And he gives it away. And the miracle is not just that everyone eats. It is not just that no one goes away empty. It is the leftovers. Twelve baskets full. An abundance no one could have imagined from a lunch too small to share.

Reflection and Connection

I think about this story every time I stand in my kitchen, staring at leftovers, wondering if there is enough. Enough food. Enough energy. Enough patience. Enough faith. It is so easy to believe in scarcity, to see only what is lacking. But this story pulls me back every time to a God who works in abundance. A God who says, give me what you have. However small, however inadequate. Watch what I can do with it. It reminds me that miracles often begin with what we are willing to offer, no matter how small it seems. A packed lunch. A kind word. A moment of trust. It does not have to be perfect. It just has to be given.

The Bigger Picture

Sometimes we look for God in the big things the grand gestures, the life-changing moments, the answers we have been begging for. But more often than not, God shows up in the ordinary. In bread. In fish. In the simple, overlooked things that seem too small to matter. What if the miracle is not just that Jesus fed the crowd, but that he invited others to participate? What if it is in the giving, the sharing, the trusting, that we meet the God of abundance?

Today, I want to live like I believe in leftovers. I want to trust that nothing offered to Jesus is wasted. Not my time. Not my energy. Not my words. Not my small acts of faith. There will be enough. More than enough. There will be baskets and baskets left over.

Gracefully yours,

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