Abundance

On Sunday, our pastor taught on the feeding of the 5,000. It will long be remembered because he had this cool slide showing the relative size of the food available to the crowd. And the projector rebooted just as he got there. For some reason, that made it all the more memorable.

One thing that stood out to me was that he didn't draw an application. This is an amazing event. And Jesus really wasn't teaching anything. Jesus made no specific point. He just fed them. The word that came to my mind was abundant.

Jesus fed all of these people - over 5,000 of them - to the point of unbuckling their belts they were so full. And they still had leftovers! Not just some, but 12 huge baskets of food. We're not talking about bread baskets here. These were large storage bins. In absolutely no way was Jesus giving them just what they needed. He gave them way more than that, without calling any special attention to it.

I was blown away by the extreme nature of Jesus' compassion for these people. He had to let it overwhelm Him to go to these lengths. As someone who struggles with extreme emotions, I feel better realizing that it's not so weird. Jesus is certainly better at controlling them. But in these moments He allows Himself to feel so deeply that He just went wild providing for them. That's the people God created us to be.

Words

I read this great quote once... Words never stay the same. The words never change. But what the words say always change. Sorry, I don't remember who wrote it. The "meaning" behind this miracle changes. God uses the same story as a vehicle for different people at different times. What the words say always changes.

Sometimes I make the mistake of thinking a message means just one thing. Like a good work of art, the beholder and the artist come together bringing their own perceptions, creating something new, something personal. God wrote these words for us. Those words never change. But what they say changes as He breathes His life into them.