Pick Up The Remaining Fragments
The children of Israel were told to set up memorials for remembrance for everything that they went through so that they could remember what great and mighty things the Lord had done for them. I believe that we too, are to learn from this, and mark memorials of remembrance in our lives, of deliverance, healings, and where our faith had been strengthened, for in doing so we will be strengthened in our future trials and tribulations. This will also give us a testimony to the power and might in our Lord and bring glory to Him. In the feeding of the 5,000 Jesus told the disciples to gather up the remaining fragments. Have you ever thought about why He might have said this? I know I have. First of all they only had 5 loaves of bread and two fish, there were 5,000 people. When Jesus prayed over this meal He knew that His Father would provide. In fact there were enough fragments leftover that they gathered up 12 baskets. No where in this story does it say why He had them do this. What I do feel in my heart is this, when the disciples thought there was no way for that many to be fed there first response was should we go and buy food and then Jesus asked them how much food did they have in their possession, the miracle came when Jesus prayed and the Father blessed the meal and gave the increase, the real miracle was in showing the disciples and the people the act of thankfulnes, and that of faith. As I sit here this morning and look at this, those fragments represent our lives, after all we've lived, before we became a believer in Christ, God picked up our brokenness, our torn up, messed up lives, and made us whole, gave us direction, gave us purpose, gave us eternal life. We can look back at all that we've come through, and see little by little how God takes every broken piece, and molds us back into a whole vessel for His glory. So if you are broken from your past, and do not know the Lord, I invite you today to humbly surrender your heart and life to Him, and let Him be Lord of your life, let Him take what is broken and begin to show you the abundant life in Him, let Him have all your pain and sorrow. He is waiting to mold you into a beautiful vessel, because He can take something broken and put all the pieces back together, a beautiful vessel unto Him, nothing missing, nothing broken, but whole. Amen