Each day during the  month of March we will be sharing a devotional from a booklet written by Steve Love. Steve is a member of Canton First and a Traumatic Brain Injury survivor. If you would like a complete PDF of this devotional, it can be downloaded here.

Day 19

John 6:8-9 (New International Version)

 Another 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?”

     A vast crowd of people follow Jesus to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee.  John tells us “a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the miraculous signs he had performed on the sick.”   Jesus asked his disciples testing them where they could find food to feed the great crowd.  We are told that the number was 5,000.   In reality the crowd was much larger then 5,000.  When attendees were taken at this time of history only the men were counted.  Women and children were never counted, that did not mean they did not have value. 

    Philip quickly told Jesus, “Eight months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”   Philip was trying to show Jesus how vast a problem it would be to feed the crowd.  Andrew spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?’  The boy’s mother packed him a lunch of five small barley loaves and two small fish.  We tend to think in terms of how our loaves of bread we have today.  The boy’s loaves of bread were most likely the size of our biscuits we buy in tubes of 10 from the stores.  His two 2 fishes we the about the size of sardines.

     The miracle we call the feeding of the 5,000 would never have happen if the boy did not share his lunch.  He was not even counted in the number that was feed.  The boy allowed Jesus to work though him by giving Jesus his lunch.   The boy could have said to Jesus no this was the lunch his mother packed it for him to eat.  The boy could have looked at his launch and looked at the crowd and laugh telling Jesus no way his lunch would feed this crowd.  The boy had chooses and he chose to give his lunch to Jesus.  Jesus used his small lunch and brought about a great miracle.

     We are just like that boy.  We can hide ourselves away.  Stay home afraid of people think and wondering how they will react to us.  Many people that day on the shore of Galilee thought yea boy give him your launch I am hungry and laugh at him.  There was a time when anyone with disability was hidden away from sociality.  Many who have a brain injury want to hide from the world.    It is a fact of life that there are curl people in the world.  They do not represent all of humanity just the uneducated.  If we hide from the world how will the world know the truth about brain injuries? 

     We are the most knowledgeable ones about living life with a brain injury.  The boy shared his launch with Jesus and the crowd and made a different.  Only when we share ourselves and the knowledge, we process we will make a different.  The boy made a different when he got involved.  It is our choice to be involved to make a different or hide.  How will you decide?

Pray and thank God for His compassion for us and how He meets our daily needs.

Pray and thank God for the people who choice and made a different in our lives.

Pray and ask God to help us by giving the strength we need to make a different in our world.