Can an Offering So Small Go So Far?

In recent years I've found great encouragement in the little boy's offering of his simple gift of five loaves and two fishes to Jesus. It's become sort of a theme for me as I recognize increasingly that God takes and breaks our most feeble of offerings and employs them to His glory and the good of others. It's really quite freeing. I can work to do my best and offer who I am and whatever I may have to Him; yet, in the end, it is He that takes it, blesses it, breaks it, and multiplies it to usefulness. How humbling and awesome this is!

A little while back, M.L.H., Spritual Birdwatching, made reference to a daily meditation by Henri Nouwen. In some ways, the daily nature of the meditation e-letter can be a bit much; nonetheless, I appreciate Henri Nouwen's heart and find his comments edifying and, at times, challenging. Given my penchant for the "loaves and fishes", here is a recent tidbit that merits meditation:

"Jesus is given to the world. He was chosen, blessed, and broken to be given. Jesus' life and death were a life and death for others. The Beloved Son of God, chosen from all eternity, was broken on the cross so that this one life could multiply and become food for people of all places and all times.

As God's beloved children we have to believe that our little lives, when lived as God's chosen and blessed children, are broken to be given to others. We too have to become bread for the world. When we live our brokenness under the blessing, our lives will continue to bear fruit from generation to generation. That is the story of the saints ..... and it can be our story too." Henri Nouwen

God Bless.