Brown Bag Lunch

I got ready to leave for work yesterday and Julie said, "Here is the lunch I made for you" as she handed me a brown bag with handles. Inside was a Tupperware type box with room for a sandwich on one side and compartments for raisins and Wheat Thins on the other side.

At lunch time I went out and sat on a bench in the crisp fall air warmed by the bright sunshine on a cloudless day. A professor friend of mine joined me on the bench. After devouring my delicious turkey sandwich I went back to my office. Upon returning to the office, there was a voicemail from Julie reminding me to eat my lunch just in case I forgot about it and left it in the refrigerator. She didn't want me to repeat the "fungus experiment gone wrong" that happened when I forgot about another sandwich that was left in my office refrigerator for about two years...

My iWitness...

Sitting there chatting yesterday at lunch with my brown bag, with hundreds of students walking by on their way to or from lunch I was reminded of another boy who had a brown bag lunch.

Seems like Jesus was talking to about 5,000 men along with their families and as usual everyone was getting a little hungry. Jesus had the brilliant idea to feed the people.

He was met with some resistance. "Are you kidding me?", declares Philip, the bean counter, accountant type person. He's not done... "Do you know how much money it is going to take to feed all these people? Take one person's annual salary and buy all the food you can and then distribute it to this crowd and everyone is going to get just a little." He walks away in disgust at the thought.

I don't know much about Andrew. In fact, no one does except for one thing. He is a linker. He links people to Jesus. He linked his brother Simon to Jesus and then Simon got his name changed to Peter.

And in the middle of a potential crisis Andrew comes to the apparent rescue again when he links a young boy and his brown bag lunch to Jesus. This boy has five loaves of bread and two fish!  But, then the futility of his words hits him like a two by four, "What are these among so many?"

You know the rest...
The people are fed...
Their appetites are fulfilled..
Twelve baskets of leftovers are collected for the food bank...
The miracle recorded in all four gospel accounts, the only miracle to be recorded by all four...

All because of a boy and his brown bag lunch...

Can you imagine the conversation when he got home and his mom asked, "How was your day son?"

I'm wondering what is in your brown bag of life today...
I'm wondering if you wouldn't mind offering it to the Lord today...
Not just a part of it, but all of it...

Won't it be fun, at the end of the day to share with each other what miracles God performs with our brown bag lunch...

And that's my iWitness...
Laugh often and Fear not!
David!