The young boy grabbed his lunch, tucked it in his tunic and took off for the countryside to spend the day listening to the Teacher, Jesus of Nazareth. We don't know if he packed his lunch himself or if his mother prepared those five barley loaves and two fish for him. But you can be sure he had no idea that soon his simple lunch was going to be used by Jesus to feed an estimated 15,000 people—5000 men plus women and children.

Author Elizabeth George writes,

Here’s a question to think about: If someone asked you to describe the quiet time you had this morning, what would you say? This is exactly the question Dawson Trotman, founder of The Navigators ministry organization, used to ask men and women applying for missions work. He once spent five days interviewing candidates for overseas missionary service. He spent a half hour with each one, asking specifically about their devotional life. Sadly, only one person out of 29 interviewed said his devotional life was a constant in his life.[1]

 

[1] Elizabeth George, A Woman After God’s Own Heart (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1997), 30.

Dark periods in life come to all of us—times when all you know about God is being put to the test. The Apostle Paul had an experience like that. It started when he had a vision of a man begging him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us" (Acts 16:9). Sensing this was God directing him, Paul and his helper Silas immediately went to Philippi, a leading city of that area.

Mention any date since 1980 to Jill Price, and she can tell you what happened to her on that day—"what time she got up, who[m] she met, what she did, what she ate. In effect, she is a human diary," writes Barry Wigmore.[1]

Temptation comes to all of us in one form or another.  Who at one time or another has not felt an intense desire to do something you really knew you shouldn't do?

When he was in his later years, Dr. D. James Kennedy, wrote the following:

Now, I know that someday I am going to come to what some people will say is the end of this life.... I don't want them to cry. I want them to begin the [memorial] service with the Doxology and end with the Hallelujah chorus, because I am not going to be there, and I am not going to be dead. I will be more alive than I have ever been in my life, and I will be looking down upon you poor people who are still in the land of dying and have not yet joined me in the land of the living. And I will be alive forevermore....[1]

 

[1] http://65.240.226.104:8080/

Too many people who have had a wrong done to them have "built a memorial to the event and placed it smack dab in the center of the living room of their life, going there every day to worship"--so says a minister.[1] A memorial to a wrong done in the past! I had never thought of it that way, but I think he's right.

 

[1] Quoted by Dr. Laura Schlessinger and Rabbi Stewart Vogel, The Ten Commandments (New York, NY: Cliff Street Books, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers, 1998), 44.

When life throws at us circumstances we can't understand, we have two choices: question God or trust Him. Lisa Beamer learned that lesson--twice.

Sometimes I wonder if we are so busy accomplishing certain things every day that we miss opportunities to bless the people around us. God's quiet voice may not be heard as He points us to where He has something special for us to do—a loving touch, comforting words, even a short prayer with someone who is hurting.

Pastor Glenn Burris tells that one of the ways he helps around the house is to haul the large garbage containers out to the street for pickup—a five-minute job.  But one time, he relates, the simple task took on an unexpected twist.