The Four Parts of a Blessing

© Staci Stallings

One of the stories in the Bible that always fascinated me was the story of the small boy who had five loaves and two fish. Can you imagine being that kid? His mother, I’m sure, packed his lunch for him that morning. “Now, be careful with this. Don’t smash that bread, and no trading with anybody!” So, off he goes to see this guy they call Jesus.

Jesus talks, and then it’s time to eat. Think about this, there were 5,000 men there—which may mean there were many more than that when you count the women and the children—AND NO ONE THOUGHT TO BRING ANYTHING TO EAT EXCEPT THIS ONE KID! Okay, this is not Kansas City, Missouri. There isn’t a McDonald’s five blocks down from the convention center where Jesus is speaking. They are out in the middle of the country, and they came out here with no food.

I think it’s quite possible the people who came to hear Jesus speak may not have realized that’s where they were headed that day. Maybe they were headed further down the road to work or coming back from visiting someone. They saw this crowd and thought, “Hmm, wonder what’s going on over there.” So, they pulled the camel over and went to see what was up.

They didn’t intend to stay so long. They had fully intended to only stay a minute to see what was happening. But Jesus was a dynamic speaker. I’m quite sure He was a dynamic spirit—one of those people that you’re just drawn to and you can’t really explain why. So, He’s teaching, and they’re listening, and the crowd is growing. Then all of a sudden one of the disciples realizes, “Hey, man, we haven’t eaten in like hours!”

So, he goes up to Jesus and says, “Tell these people to go home. We need to go get something to eat.” To which, Jesus turns to him and says, “Feed them yourself.”

Okay, I’ve been to enough “community events.” As the day winds down, if you’ve had a good day, the meat is running a bit thin, we’re out of potatoes, and I really hope we don’t get many more people coming in. These things go through a person’s mind when they are in charge. I’m quite sure they went through this disciple’s mind as well.

But Jesus said to feed the people, so what do they do? The only thing they can do… They start looking around for any food available. That’s when one of the disciples sees this boy. With very few other options, they ask him for his lunch. Probably knowing his mother will be mad but seeing little other choice, he gives them the food he has.

You know the rest of the story. Jesus takes the meager offering, blesses it, has it distributed, and it feeds the multitude. This is exactly how the blessings in our lives work if we understand what really happened here.

The boy most likely did not make that bread himself, nor did he make the fish. He was given them—by his mother, yes—but even more so by his Heavenly Father. They were his blessing. Now he could’ve kept that blessing to himself, but he didn’t. When he was asked, he gave his blessing away. He gave that blessing to Jesus. Jesus took the blessing that had been given the boy, blessed it, and it was distributed as a blessing to all those present.

Think about what Jesus is calling us to do through this story with the blessings and talents in our own lives. He has given them to us, and we can keep them to ourselves if we wish. But I think He is inviting us to see what can happen when we don’t keep them to ourselves. When we give them back to Him and let Him bless them, and then we share them with the world. It becomes not two fish and a few loaves of bread—a small, hardly-worth-mentioning offering—it becomes “enough to feed a multitude.” And there’s even 12 baskets leftover.

Yes, we can keep our talents and blessings to ourselves. We can hold them close to our hearts and horde them so that they don’t slip through our fingers. However, consider how incredible that blessing could become if we give it back to Jesus, let Him bless it, and then Him, through us, use it to improve the world around us.

It’s something to think about.

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