Thankful for Candles

“But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord for he has been good to me.” –Psalm 13:5,6

I’ve been putting together a wish list for my mother, pictures included so she knows exactly what I’m looking for. I do this every year around this time to give her ideas of what she could get me for Christmas. As I’ve gotten older and more mature, I’ve realized that Christmas isn’t about gifts but I’ve become fond of giving. Therefore, I want my mom to still have the opportunity to give. ;)

I also like the opportunity to give and am really struggling to hold back from spending beyond my means to fulfill that desire. Yet while I’m out shopping for others I often window shop for myself. Then I come home and try to put away the gifts, cleaning closets to make room. I was cleaning today and was in the kitchen and routinely flipped over the page of my daily calendar. Today, it was referring to the passage in the Bible when Jesus fed 5,000 people and my mind started rolling.

After the short verse on my calendar, it read “there is a principle here that bears repeating. Jesus GAVE THANKS for what He had and God multiplied it to what He needed.” My sin-tainted mind quickly thought of what things I “needed” for Christmas and gave thanks for tea bags (I was in the kitchen) and candles. Obviously not things that are a necessity really but things I enjoy and bring much needed peacefulness to my soul and thought “hey if I give thanks the tea bags and candles I have now will multiply.” As I continued to clean out my closets and prepare for the quickly approaching holidays I realized I had quite a few fall-ish smelling candles lying around, more than I thought I had. I felt like God already multiplied my thanksgiving of my candles. I said another thanks and continued to meditate on that miracle of Jesus and the disciples feeding 5,000 and hungered for the deeper principle that God was trying to feed me.

As I sit and browse through the disciples accounts of this miracle, I obviously find some difference in their recollections of the events but I find repeated things that when consolidated really expand my souls yearning for giving of thanks.

First, this event followed Jesus finding out the news of his dear friend John the Baptist’s death. He was dealing with loss at this time and withdrew to a quiet place for peace, rest and reflection. As he did this, crowds swarmed around him and his disciples making life pretty chaotic and busy. Isn’t it strange that sometimes when there are sad moments of the soul, life seems to get a little crazier causing added stress making it harder to find peace? Much like the Christmas season huh? Sometimes the holidays can be a sad time for people because of loss and loneliness in life yet through it we have to be merry and seemingly feed thousands of people cookies and all kinds of holiday treats.

Yet even through this time of craziness and perhaps some sadness Jesus and the disciples still kept plugging along with miracles, teaching and healing. The gospels tell us that Jesus felt compassion for the crowds, people who were hurt, lost, and in need of healing and guidance, and continued to respond. It reminds me that through my hurt and consumption of my problems sometimes, I have to remind myself to not be selfish and continue to give to people. Life still rolls on and people around me will still have emptiness and needs that will require fulfilling.

One of the needs that arose during the disciples teaching was not just filling people minds and hearts with good news but these people had to fill their tummies with good food. The question of who would respond to this need arose and Jesus knew just how to respond even though the disciples didn’t know how in the world they would fulfill this enormous need. I was reminded that when we ask God or others to respond to our needs sometimes we get answers and help but sometimes we don’t. And even still sometimes I get annoyed when I’m asked to supply my own needs.

Jesus responded in this way to the situation. When the disciples asked how in the world they would have the resources, Jesus showed them they had the resources at their finger tips. Of course 5 small loaves of bread and two fish seemed like not enough at all. Isn’t that just like how we feel sometimes about our own strengths and God-given gifts? We seem to always want more. I think we have to be reminded that all we need will be provided even when things seem unending, impossible, dark and hopeless.

The next step was to divide the crowds into smaller groups. Why this was done I’m not really sure but I can think of some ideas. Maybe it was to get a better picture/way of seeing how many people they had to feed? Maybe it was a psychological trick to make the disciples feel like 100 groups was a smaller number than 5,000 people? Maybe it was just to divide people into fun fellowship groups as they dined? Either way I see this repeated factor as a way to show that sometimes when we are faced with a need, we need to plan and regroup and get a really good look at our resources and how big the need really is. It’s also a time of prayer and discernment or just a short moment to catch our breath.

Then, the loaves and fish were brought to Jesus. He broke them and GAVE THANKS. Just like that 5,000 people were fed all from 7 pieces of food!!! What a response huh? All Jesus had to do was GIVE THANKS to God for the small amount of resources they had and WHAM…God honored that heart of thanksgiving. He made their supply drastically multiply. Not only did he provide he made the loaves and fish feast overflow. It was like a buffet. Not only did this crowd have a small piece of bread or a morsel of fish. These accounts in scripture echo the fact that these people had as much as they wanted to satisfy them. And then after what I picture as everyone’s guts overflowing with bread and fish, the disciples gathered the broken pieces of leftovers and still could fill 12 baskets full of scraps!

This reminds me of how awesome it is to give thanks. God totally deserves it with every breath we take. And when we take time to really give thanks with our hearts, how fabulous do you feel? Fantastic, huh? And then if we really do have a response of pure thanksgiving in our soul, God responses back with more and more blessings. Amazing right?

One more thing to point out about this story is that Jesus wanted the broken pieces and leftovers to be saved. Nothing was to go to waste. What they did with the leftovers I’m not sure but reminds me of our brokenness and how often we waste our gifts. We are broken people and are often clueless little lost sheep. Even still God loves us and wants all of us, even the yucky, soggy, smelly and ugly parts of us. In everything we have and do, he wants us to praise him too. He wants us to use dark times, weird talents, skeletons in the closets to tell our story. He wants our stories and our lives to shine through the darkness. He wants our light, his bright flame in our soul, to make others thankful for their candles too!