abundance and blessing

Saturday August 4^th, John 6: 12 When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, "Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted." 13 So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.  The second part of the miracle is the blessing of the hearts that takes place as those sitting on the ground reach into their own private hidden stash, and share.  It is then that the abundance of the blessing is manifest in the physical world as well as in the spiritual world.  When we reach into our own private, hoarded, protected stash that in reality is a gift from God all along, we too begin to see the true blessings in our lives.  Our calling is not a “God and me” thing, where I am blessed because I have decided to follow Jesus in the right way and in the right church.  It is a “God and us” thing, where we are blessed as we gather together, brothers and sisters in Christ, around the body broken, and in the process, heal some of the broken pieces of our lives as we help one another.