Loaves and Fishes

YHWH has blessed my life and the ministry in which He's called me, many times over with what I call the Loaves and Fishes blessing.  He showed me years ago and led me to teach this principle of faith, when the prosperity teaching was flourishing.  I'd truly rather have 12 baskets of left overs of something of actual value, than 100 fold increase of something worthless, like dollar bills!

This past week, I've been blessed to be enjoying one of my granddaughters, and was also visited by my late friend's family last week-end.  I think I've seen more people and done more actual speaking to humans in the last two weeks than I've done the first six months of the year!  That's not the point of this article, however.  I want to talk about the loaves and fishes blessing of multiplication, only this time it was chicken!

Two chickens, some chips and twelve people for lunch.  I wasn't quite expecting the size crowd that arrived, but I had prayed that everything would go well, so I believed my prayer had been heard.  I got a little shaky when I realized a gallon of lime-ade just filled all the glasses once, but I persevered.  There were buns, bread, and crackers, bar b q sauce and spicy mustard.  My friend's sister had told me not to go to any trouble, they wouldn't be staying for a meal, so I thought of this as more of a rest stop snack in their travel plans.

Only one pulled chicken fit on the platter.  It seemed the more I scrappied it up for sandwiches, the higher the pile became.  The other chicken was on the stove, ready for the platter, but it never came to that.  There was still pulled chicken left on the platter, as the paper plates began to be thrown away.  There were still teen-agers munching crackers and chips, and I started to grab the other chicken, when the everyone said they were finished and thank you.  I attempted one last offer and was declined.  They had continental breakfast before they got here and dinner plans up the road.

One chicken did in fact feed twelve people and the other chicken, let me tell you.  First, I made chicken and dumplings with the dark meat and that covered a dinner and a lunch the next day.  I made my now famous chicken taquitos with half the white meat, and my granddaughter just raved.  Then she said, I outdid myself, making stuffed kale with the last of the chicken . . .  One package of cream cheese took care of both meals, and the difference was quite distinct, yet simple.

The taquitos had cumin and jalapeno, the stuffed kale was spiced with oregano and thyme.  The economics of the kingdom is having more left over than you started with!

And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all.  And they did all eat, and were filled.  And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes.  the Gospel according to Mark