In Jesus’ Hands

Yesterday we reflected on the story of the feeding of the 5,000, and we raised the question: What can Jesus do with just a little bit of faith, and some small action on our part?

When I was in my early 30s, the church I was serving down in Sarasota had built a relationship with CEPAD – which is a coalition of churches in Nicaragua.

I was down there one year, and I remember one morning we’d just finished a project. I was standing around with our group talking when a local pastor stopped by and took me out to see a community project. We pulled up into a field with a large open-air outdoor structure with a palm-thatched roof.

All around the Palapa, there were maybe a hundred children lined up to receive a scoop of soy meal. It was a milky white semi-solid substance – not exactly very appetizing – but, most likely the only protein they would receive that day. I noticed that there was a lot of laughter. The children were cutting up and playing.

What I learned was that in that part of Nicaragua, there was a 70% unemployment rate and that these women came together from all the different churches in the area (from many different denominations) to pool their time, their energy, and the little money they had to make sure that no child would go hungry.

I’ve often thought about those women in Nicaragua. This really was an incredible act of faith. Individually what did they have? Not much. Any one of them could have said, “I would give, but there just might not be enough left over to put shoes on the feet of my children. I would give but I’m worried we won’t have enough ourselves to eat this week. I would help cook, but there’s more work than I can handle. And those would have been realistic answers. Yet that’s not how they answered. Everybody ate.

Just a little bit of faith… and some small action… in the hands of Jesus.

Let us pray: O God, give us eyes to see the world not as the disciples saw it, but as Jesus sees it – as a world with the potential for miracles when our lives and our gifts are placed in his hands. Amen.