What is in your hand?

Cartoon by Genaye Eshetu 

In the Bible we read a story of a young boy who gave Jesus 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, from which Jesus fed 5000 men, not including women and children. The disciples were even able to pick 12 basketfuls of broken pieces of bread and fish after all people being fed. (Mark 6 :33- 39)

The same Lord who fed thousands from 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish, is inquiring the same question to us; what is in your hand?

Are you blessed with small talents, be it writing, drawing, talking, sewing, fixing…but haven’t done anything about it yet?

Are you not doing what you been dreaming since childhood?

Are you postponing your business plan because you don’t have the budget?

Are you giving any excuse, be it being born from a poor family, poor country, not going to school, nobody else is doing this, what are people going to say if I do this and that, I don't know how to start, fear of failure…

God is asking you, ‘what is in your hand?’

As adults of good reasoning we often tend to do the calculation in our mind based on our monthly earning. That is the same thing the disciples did back then, ‘Eight months wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite’…but the young boy just offered his fish trusting, that must be why the Bible tells us to have faith like children!

If we are willing to trust Him with the very small thing in our hand, He is able and willing to bless us and do miracles!!!

John 6:1-15 NIV

“1Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), 2and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick.3Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples.4The Jewish Passover Feast was near.

5When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, "Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?" 6He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.

7Philip answered him, "Eight months' wages[a] would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!"

8Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up, 9"Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?"

10Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." There was plenty of grass in that place, and the men sat down, about five thousand of them.

11Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.

12When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted."

13So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.

14After the people saw the miraculous sign that Jesus did, they began to say, "Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world." 15Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.”