The Multiplication of Loaves

MORNING PRAISE | April 24, 2020

The Multiplication of Loaves | John 6:1-15

PERSONAL REFLECTION

When I was a young boy, I was once taught that Jesus did not literally perform a miracle by multiplying the loaves and the fishes; instead, when the people saw the young boy and his humble offering, they were moved by his compassion and felt ashamed, and so they started to take out the food that they had with them all along; sharing what they had to those who had little or none.

I think about it now, but it doesn’t seem to matter how all those people had been fed. Is it even worth the trouble to obsess over processes, procedures and methodologies when at the end of the day, everything is shaped by a single over-arching reason? Put to words in a more general and practical sense, you can have many “how”s, but would any of that still matter when all of them are driven by a single “why”?

Interestingly, it was a barrage of “how” questions that had been a source of great desolation for me before, during, and immediately after the holy week. How will my Arvisu journey end? How ready am I to accept the results? If not accepted, how will my “Plan B” work in a post-Covid-19 world? How can I be accepted into the society and be expected to persist in living a chaste and celibate life when I had been itching to go out to the world again to give dating another try? After Arvisu, how can I allow myself to be loved by others when I am constantly being eaten by my insecurities and jealousy? How can I truly allow myself to love others when it seems I only suffocate the people I love: crossing boundaries and disrespecting their personal limits?

As I wallowed in those “how’s” in the morning of my birthday last week, my closest college friends sent me a tribute video showcasing our pictures from college, and the rare occasions when we met after that: get togethers, out of town trips, orgmates’ weddings. They also shot videos of themselves greeting me, telling me the things they hate the most about me (most of which you already know); and the things they love the most about me (some of which I am still in denial about).

That video reminded me of what I brought with me here in Arvisu: the core of the man who left his stable job and the familiar for a shot at something that mattered more. I was reminded of who I am, and because of that, I was also reminded of why I am here. In a manner of speaking, my friends reminded me of my five loaves and two fishes, the humble offering whose use I am trying to figure out. Somehow, being reminded of that has quashed all the “how”s that had been consuming all of my mental and emotional resources up to that day. Being grounded on the “why” had somehow given me freedom from the worries of the “how”.

And so today I would like to thank the Lord for the gift of life, the gift of friends, the gift of remembering the why’s, and the gift of letting go of the how’s. As I inch closer and closer to results day, I pray that I may truly surrender all of my how’s and the uncertainties that they are attached to, and that I may latch on ever tighter to the why’s of my being here in the first place. 

Amen.  

Thought for the Day        

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” – Friedrich Nietzsche