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
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