An ordinary boy,
Prepares an ordinary lunch,
For an ordinary day,
Or so he thought.
Five loaves of bread and two fish;
A lunch he prepared as days before, but a lunch he prepared nevertheless.
The day begins as ordinary as the day before, yet God was about to do something extraordinary using the ordinary boy and his lunch.
American basketball coach and player
John Wooden once quoted:
When opportunity comes, it’s too late to prepare.
Miracles and opportunities are a moment away if we expect them, if we look for them, if we are prepared for them.
Going about his day, this boy couldn’t have anticipated a hungry crowd of five thousand to intersect his travels, a crowd Jesus told his disciples to feed.
Offering up his lunch, Jesus broke this ordinary meal of five loaves and two fish from an ordinary boy and blessed this meal back into the disciple’s hands, where it multiplied to feed five thousand and their families, with twelve baskets remaining.
(John 6:1-14)
An opportunity came and found this boy well prepared to witness and become part of a miracle.
God used an ordinary boy in an extraordinary way.
God has opportunities waiting to intersect our travels also, but we must be prepared in season and in out, to meet them.
Because…
When opportunity comes, it’s too late to prepare.
John Wooden
Jesus longs to use and do great things with whatever rests in our hand.
Our hearts should echo this willingness…
Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee…
Acts 3:6 KJV
Our ordinary lunches have great potential when we offer them up to Him.
Jesus wants our song, our poem, our story, our painting, our love, our compassion, our anything, even a fish, so He can take and multiply what’s in our hand for a miracle.
God has need of thee.
He’s gifted us each on purpose for reasons which will reveal itself when we least expect.
Trusting when the opportunity comes, we find ourselves fully prepared in our gifting.
Author and speaker Lisa Bevere encourages…
Offer God whatever He has placed in your hand – whatever is in your care or control. Offer it up for heavenly purposes and see what God will do. As we release what is in our hands, He releases what is in His.
Yesterday over coffee with a dear friend, God put me to the test with the content of this blog already in progress, when I was asked to speak at a conference my friend of many years was hosting,
When Opportunity Comes…
Among the lively conversations shared around each table that morning at this local eatery, privately I was having a Moses moment with God, reluctantly responding as Moses did when God presented an opportunity to him long ago,
“Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent (of speech)…”
Exodus 4:10 NIV
It’s easy to hide behind these written words of mine, a wall of personal security.
Yet, while I’m not afraid of testifying God’s Word before others, I tried to justify “my lack of eloquence” to my friend.
Interestingly, I found myself prepared to meet this opportunity with a message already outlined; my life’s message God has prompted me to author and bind into my first book.
How could I confess these truths before man in this blog, while secretly giving God my “no” to this opportunity?
God hath need of thee, to multiply my life’s message and feed a room full of hungry women, if only I’d be willing to offer my ordinary lunch to Him in my “yes”.
I might have dragged my heart a ways down the road before committing to this conference held in a few short months.
But my friend stirred up the excitement in me through a song written by Pastor Mike Jr; excitement I stir up in your opportunities as well; that
God’s getting ready to move…and it’s going to be BIG…
Song BIG
By Pastor Mike Jr.
….
You ought to declare that over your own life
That it’s my time
And I can feel it.
Breakthrough is in the room.
God’s getting ready to move.
Listen, you ought to declare this over your own life, say it
For I know my God is working miracles just for me
And it’s going to be BIG…