Verse of the Day for November 22

John notices the grass. Now there was much grass in the place. It is the kind of detail only someone who was there would remember, five thousand men settling down on a green hillside.

Then Jesus takes five barley loaves a boy had brought, and before anything happens to them, when he had given thanks. He thanks his Father for an amount that is plainly not enough. The multiplying comes after the thanks, not before.

When everyone has eaten, he says something easy to skip. Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. The broken pieces mattered to him. They filled twelve baskets.

If you have to start over, after a business failed, after a divorce, after a long illness, you are probably standing among fragments. Pieces of a plan, a little savings, some friendships that survived. It can look like too little to begin with.

Do what Jesus did with too little. Give thanks for it as it is, before it grows. Then pick up the pieces carefully. He does not waste fragments. Tonight, write down what remains, and thank him for each line.

Beginning again starts with thanks for what is left, not grief for what is lost.

Nothing that remains in his hands is wasted.