10/24/2026
Is it really that small of a thing?
Matthew 6:9
We all know the story of Jesus feeding five thousand men with five small loaves of bread and two fish. But have we ever stopped to think about the boy who gave them the fish and bread? We do not really know anything about him. Was that food for his family or was he selling them? We just do not know. What we do know is that he freely gave them to the apostilles. He could have said "I'm sorry, this is for my family" but he gave all that he had. It reminds us of the story of the widow who fed Elijah when she only had a handful of flour and a little jar of oil (1Kings 17). It was an act of faith and love. The boy, like the woman, gave what little they had to bless the servant of God, and in this case Jesus Himself.
We can see three things here.
1) It was an act of obedience. He knew that what he had was not enough for ten people, let alone 5000. But he gave all that he had when asked. (in Genesis 22 God told Abraham to sacrifice His son and Abraham obeyed believing that the Lord would provide a better sacrifice)
2) It was an act of faith. He must have trusted that if Jesus asked for what he had that Jesus could miraculously make it enough for all. While the apostilles did not believe that it was enough, I think the little boy believed in the power of Jesus to make it enough.
- Jesus tells us that we must have the faith like a small child to enter heaven (Mark 10:15)
3) It was an act of faithful service. He gave what little he had, never questioning if it was enough. All he did was serv the Lord with what little he had. We all too often think that we don't have much to offer the Lord in service, but what we do not see is how the Lord can take even our smallest acts of service and use them to bring glory to Him.
(Col 3:23)
We too need to be like this little boy. We need to be obedient when the Lord calls, not questioning whether the task presented to us is possible but serving faithfully believing that even our small acts of service the Lord can use for incredible things. We may not see how these acts are used by the Lord now, but I do believe that He will reveal to us the results of all we did for Him when we get to heaven. And we will be humbled and amazed at how the Lord chose to use us to accomplish great things. Something like a small act of kindness to a person we "randomly" meet one time, how that kindness helped lead them to salvation. No act of service and faith is small to the Lord. He uses them all for His glory. Amen!
