Fishwich Snack-Pack

I’ve had the responsibility of planning and providing meals for hundreds of teenagers at camps and conferences. This is no small task. I mean, have you seen how teenagers eat?

Trying to feed teenagers on a limited budget is quite the challenge.

200 kids. A week of camp. Thirteen meals provided. $2.75 per meal budgeted. Total food cost: $7,150.

I can’t even begin to imagine the difficulty of doing this on a larger scale – like 25x larger (5,000 people).

Just one meal for 5,000 people at the bargain price of $2.75 = a total cost of $13,750.

That’s a whole lot of cheddar baby.

Jesus and his disciples were faced with this reality.

A hungry crowd (minimum of 5,000 people).

No Taco Bell nearby.

What to do?

The disciples recommended sending everyone home.

Jesus said, “No, you provide their dinner.”

The accountant/numbers-nerd Phillip freaked out: “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to buy all that food.”

Andrew brought a middle-school boy over to Jesus. He was carrying his Nintendo DS and a brown paper bag with a fishwich snack-pack that his mom sent with him.

The boy was happy to be there and glad to contribute something.

He probably thought that Jesus would enjoy one of the fishwiches…

Little did the boy know, Jesus was about to perform the most famous picnic miracle of all time. Jesus took the fishwiches, blessed them, broke them into pieces, gave them to his disciples and told them to share with everyone.

Everyone ate. In fact, there were plenty of leftovers. (John 6.1-13)

Imagine the stories the middle-school boy told his parents late that evening when he got home!

Maybe you feel like your resources are small, insignificant and wouldn’t make a difference in the lives of others. It’s easy to let that feeling keep you from sharing what you have.

The story of Jesus feeding a huge crowd with a middle-school boy’s fishwich snack-pack reminds us that our resources are significant and will make a difference in the lives of others… if we willingly to give them to Jesus.

“God loves it when the giver delights in the giving. God can pour on the blessings in astonishing ways so that you’re ready for anything and everything, more than just ready to do what needs to be done.”
(2 Corinthians 9. 7, 8 MSG)

God is our provider. He gives us more than we need so that we are able to share with others.

When we hand our “fishwich snack-pack” over to Jesus, miracles happen!

Our giving simply reflects His generous grace in our lives.

Grace makes us generous.