All-you-can-eat buffet (Prayer devotional for the week of April 10, 2011)

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The other evening, one of the kids had a particularly voracious appetite. When he asked for a third helping, I told him no. He started to pout, but I reminded him that he already had plenty to eat, assured him that he would not starve and said that dinner is not an all-you-can-eat buffet.

 

I was about to launch into my “be thankful for what you have” spiel about the many starving children in the world when one of the other kids piped up: “If you had some loaves and fish, Jesus could make more,” and another added, “Yeah – or like that lady who made the bread with the oil that didn’t run out.” I had to laugh at the way they were using Bible stories to try to justify getting third helpings to eat at dinner, but it prompted a good conversation about how we need to be grateful for having enough without being greedy to want too much.

 

When Jesus fed the 5,000+ (read the story in John 6), some of his disciples questioned him. Philip complained that it would cost too much to feed everyone, and Andrew wondered how the food could possibly stretch. What I love about this story is that a kid gave up his lunch because Jesus asked for it. Sometimes I wonder why he was the only one who came forward (or was asked) to share his food. Leave it to a kid to trust Jesus to provide! How many of us, as adults, would give up our lunch? Just like the silly example about third helpings for dinner, we could learn a lot from children’s faith.

 

The other story – the one about the widow and her everlasting oil & flour – comes from I Kings 17. Again, it’s about someone who had no reason to trust God except for her faith. Perhaps she went ahead and made the loaf for Elijah because she figured she was going to die of starvation, anyway. That’s one possibility, but I think she took him at his word that God was going to provide miraculously … and he did!

 

We often symbolize the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross by breaking bread, to remind us of how his body was broken for our sin. Will we be like Philip and Andrew were initially and doubt Jesus? Or, will we be like the boy and the widow and trust him?

A break in the clouds

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Life has been pretty cloudy lately. Sometimes it has felt like driving through dense fog and praying that I’m staying between the dashed white lines. A young man who I’ve known since he was a boy was killed while deployed in Afghanistan last week; a missionary family with whom I keep tabs online has recently posted updates on critically ill newborns in their care; friends have lost family members, others have lost jobs … Grief surrounds me.

 

I know better than to ask what else can happen, because God knows I do not want to be tested over how much tragedy I can cope with and still function adequately. Sometimes, though, I do wish for a respite from grief. I haven’t even really processed the death of our young friend in the military, because I think that if I start crying, I’m not sure how long it will be until I stop. Instead, I do the healthy thing (Not!) and just push it to the back of my mind and decide to deal with it later.

 

With all of that ache lingering in my heart, I was relieved to encounter a break in the clouds today. After much searching (and divine intervention on actually getting an appointment), I think we are on the cusp of a breakthrough regarding how well the boys are coping with the loss of my brother. I won’t go into details, for privacy reasons, but suffice it to say that it’s an answer to two-plus years of prayer.

 

Today’s encounter feels like a ray of sunshine peeking through overcast skies, and I’m hopeful that the clouds are beginning to roll back, and we’ll have many sunny days ahead.