Are you familiar with the story in the New Testament where Jesus feeds five thousand with the lunch of one small boy? Jesus turned something insignificant, by the world’s standards, into a miracle.

Let me share with you how I personally experience this work of Jesus most often. By vocation, I’m the pastor of a church. That means that among my responsibilities, I have to prepare a sermon every week to preach in front of people for whom I care very much. I have many weekends when I know my sermon is inadequate and I plead with God to somehow make it effective. But some weeks I feel as if my words don’t flow, my thoughts are unclear and I feel totally drained.

Then, during the next week, I receive some email or get some calls from people who say things like, “God spoke to me through you last Sunday,” or, “I listened to your sermon and God changed my life,” or “I went home following that sermon and got down on my knees to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior.”

It makes me wonder if they have me confused with someone else. I think they must be mistaken. But then I realize that Jesus has done it again. He has taken the verbal equivalent of five little barley loaves and two dried fish and miraculously turned it into something significant. It amazes me to see what Jesus can do – even when he has very little to work with.