Here's My Lunch, Lord

To my Readers: Here’s something I wrote (and published) several years ago. It seems applicable to me once again today. I need this reminder everytime I feeled stretched to the max! Perhaps it will also resonate with you.


I awoke this morning feeling overwhelmed at all that I needed to accomplish today. I felt as though I didn't have enough time or energy to do all that I needed to do. I felt inadequate for the tasks at hand. I absolutely had to finish my college class assignments and prepare the lesson for tonight's meeting. I was confident that all the things I was currently involved in and committed to were things that God had lead me to do. I had already learned the valuable lesson of saying "no" when necessary. I hadn't been procrastinating, but a multitude of tasks lay before me, needing to be accomplished.

"God," I cried out on the pages of my journal, "what do I need to know and understand?"

His answer came back immediately, "I know how to bless the loaves and fishes. Bring Me what you have and trust Me to multiply it and make it enough. I will be with you, and you will know that it was by My strength and not your own."

Refreshed by this reminder, I began the day, but my mind kept wandering back to what I had "heard" on the page. I thought of the little boy in the New Testament that gave his meager lunch to the Master, and what He accomplished through something small and insignificant. Jesus had taken one little lunch and turned it into more than enough to feed a hungry crowd. It was all the boy had to offer, but Jesus multiplied it into a bountiful picnic for thousands.

Later I remembered how as a child I was ashamed of the sack lunches I took to school. At lunchtime, I held my sandwiches, often mashed beans on crumbly homemade bread, under the table because I was so ashamed of my noontime fare. I did not want the other children to see what I was eating. (Today if I had mashed beans on a tortilla, I would have a burrito! But this was before I had ever heard of tortillas or burritos!)

Sometimes I even threw my lunches away and endured the remainder of the day with a grumbling stomach. From my perspective, my lunches did not compare to the lunches of my fellow students. They had enviable little bags of chips, sandwiches on brand-name bread, and store-bought cupcakes. I was not so fortunate. I even had to reuse my paper sack. Each day I would carefully fold it and take it home to be used again the next day. After awhile even the sack became cause for feelings of utter humiliation. I was never proud of my lunches.
Somehow what I had to offer today seemed much like the meager lunches of my youth—not good enough. However, today I offered my pitiful little lunch—all that I had—to Jesus and believed that He would use it and make it sufficient.

As the day draws to a close, I am filled with gratitude. God helped me to accomplish what most needed to be done. Most of all, I am grateful for the wonderful lesson that he taught me. He only desires that I give Him all that I have, presenting it at the foot of the cross and believing that He will multiply and use whatever I bring. If I offer Him all I have, then who I am and what I bring to the Master is enough.

(c) Marlene Depler