That is what Andrew said to Jesus as he looked at the little fellow’s loaves and fishes, and then at the hungry multitude. How could you divide five small cakes and two small fishes to feed five thousand people? Why, there was only a single meal in the lot. How on earth could you cut them up into five thousand parts? Each person would have required a microscope to see his helping, and even then the particle might be lost before reaching the mouth. No, it couldn’t be done. Andrew was right, and yet he was wrong. If he had just said, “Master, a boy here has a morsel of fish and bread, but I believe you can make that go round the whole crowd.” Had he said that, it would have shown the depth of his faith, and it was purposely to test the depth of his faith that Jesus asked how much would be required to give every man, woman and child a meal. Andrew, who had seen Jesus work miracles, didn’t think, at that moment, that even a miracle was fit to feed that great crowd of people. In the boy’s basket were only five little cakes and two small fishes, but in Christ’s hands they multiplied to an enormous degree.
Aren’t some of us like Andrew? We think things are not worth much, and therefore we do not give them. Of such things we say, “What are these? They are no good to anyone. I’d rather give nothing than give these.”
The lad had but little in his basket, yet that little in the hands of Christ increased more than five-thousandfold.
Boys and girls, you simply cannot tell the exact value of what you give. It was only ten cents a little girl paid for her father’s birthday gift. He did not need cuff links. He had a beautiful gold pair, and this was only a ten-cent pair. That is true, but when they were lonvingly placed in his hand by his own little girl, they mounted up in value. Indeed, he placed his own gold ones in a drawer, and wore the brass ones. They were worth only ten cents as they lay in the shop, but when they passed into his hands they were beyond price, for they were plated with the love of a little girl.
Now I wonder if you have any little gifts you can offer to God? You don’t think much of your little prayers sometimes. What are they among so many big prayers that are going up to God?
“I want to speak to God,” said a little girl, “but I know He won’t hear me. Will you speak for me, Daddy?” And what did the father tell her? He said, “If God were surrounded by the angels of heaven, who were singing their sweetest song to Him, He would say, ‘Hush, my angels, there is a little girl away down on the earth who has something to say to me, and I want to hear her.’ “
Don’t think your prayers are not heard, for God values them. And He values your kind words, and your little deeds of love. You may say of them, “What are these?” But little as they may seem, they are precious in the eyes and ears of God, and He makes them go further than ever you could imagine.
By J. Lyle Rodger
From: A Treasury of Story Sermons for Children
Edited by Charles L. Wallis