“Give them some food yourselves.” The disciples protested, “Five loaves and two fishes are all we have here.” And Jesus said, “Bring them to me.” There are two life-lessons for us in this familiar story. The first is found in Jesus’s direction to his disciples when they were faced with an overwhelming situation: “give them some food yourselves.” Somewhat embarrassed, they hold up a few loaves and fishes before him and shrug their shoulders. Jesus takes the food and blesses the little they have to offer. But then, rather than hand out the loaves and fishes, Jesus returns them to the disciples who are told to distribute them to the crowd.

There we are! This first lesson is clear. God depends on us to take part in the aid and redemption of the world. Our poor, limited, small talents, taken and blessed by God, are returned to our hands to share with others. If we fail to do so, both our gifts and God’s blessings go wanting.

The second lesson is to be found in Jesus’ words, “Bring them - bring that insignificant five loaves and two fishes - to me and don’t back off. Don’t say, but it’s so little, what can we do? I know the problems are great and your resources are tiny, but don’t give up. Bring them to me to be blessed.”

“That ‘what-can-we-do?” with our “so little” is a cry that might be the response of parents worried about their children. Children have so many peers who exert so much pressure, and their child is with those peers at school and at play far more than he or she is with the parents. In their young lives there are so many influences, so much crude and rude talk, so much violent action on TV and in the movies, so much drug use around, so many temptations to face. Parents, beside themselves, hungry for answers, ask, “What are we to do? We have nothing here but five loaves and two fishes.”

That might also be the response of someone trying to make an honest living, but the pressures to cut corners, the “everyone-is-doing-it” philosophy, cutthroat competition, and dirty office politics sap energy and spirit. He or she is hungry for answers about how to be a Christian in the workplace. “They” have all the power. He or she has nothing but “five loaves and two fishes.”

That might also be the response of the spouse who is desperately trying to make a go of a troubled marriage, and who has grown weary of being the only partner working at the relationship. Her husband is still around but not too often. And when he is home, his mind is clearly somewhere else. Hungry for a rekindling of passion, for companionship, she is left with saying sadly, “There is nothing here in this marriage but five loaves and two fishes.”

Certainly, as we saw, that was the response of the disciples when five thousand plus followed Jesus into the desert. Jesus’ reply to them was” “You give them something to eat.” And the disciples protested, “How? We have nothing here but five loaves and two fishes.” Then Jesus said softly: “Bring them here to me.” He looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.

I think the second lesson for those at their wit’s end, those stuck with a mere five loaves and two fishes in the face of overwhelming hunger, is to realize that they have a friend who whispers: “Bring them to me. Bring them to me - your skills and weaknesses, your strengths and fears, your children and their futures, what little you have. Bring them to me, and I will make you adequate for the task at hand. Bring them to me - your hopes, your dreams, your convictions. Bring them to me - your burdens, your challenges, your responsibilities, your hurts.”

You see, when life gets the best of us, perhaps it is often because we focus too much on how little we can do and too little on how much Christ can do. In any case, know that He will have the last word anyway. When all the anxieties have passed, the worries gone and the crosses disappeared, one thing will remain: God’s love...nothing can separate us from the love of God.