A Little Something

“He will love you, bless you, and multiply you. He will also bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock, in the land that he swore to your fathers to give you.” – Deuteronomy 7:13

The feeding the 5,000 is one of the best known stories in the Bible. Think about the story for a moment. It has always struck me as important that Jesus did not start with nothing. He could have started with nothing if He chose to. But instead, He chose to start with something. He chose to start with five loaves of bread, and two fish, brought to him by a small child. I don’t think it’s an accident that Scripture tells us about that first, small gift. Because it may not have been much, but it was something.

You know the rest of story. Jesus took that little something, and transformed it into something far greater and better than it could be on its own.

I think that’s what happens when God gets involved in something. We give our “something” and God doesn’t just add to it. God takes what we give and multiplies it into something we couldn’t imagine. It’s not God just giving us more. It’s God creating something new out of what we give, and multiplying it until what we end up with is so much bigger and better than we could imagine.

This applies to anything we give to God including our spiritual lives. When we give God just a small part of ourselves, whether in prayer or quiet time or service, God gives us back something even better; a sense of His presence, and love and grace. 

The key is to let go of the things we hold so tightly, whether our time or our gifts or even our fears, and let God work with them. Too often, we are comfortable with simple addition. We prefer to hold on to the something we have. It’s safer that way. There is less risk. Or so we think.

But what if God is hoping that we won’t just settle for a little something in our spiritual life? What if maybe for too long we’ve been settling for less, instead of believing in the possibility of something better? What if God is waiting for us to give Him something that He will multiply in ways that we could not even imagine. 

Discussion Questions:

1. Read Luke 9:12-17. There was not much food: 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread. Have you ever been at a point in your life where you said to God- this is all I have, do with it what you will? What happened?
2. Read Isaiah 55:8-9. Where do you need God’s wisdom so that whatever you are doing can multiply beyond what you are capable of doing on your own?
3. What something in your life can God multiply?