2-Piece Budgets and How To Be Thankful For Them

And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved

with compassion for them, and healed their sick.When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, “…Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.” But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” And they said to Him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.” Matthew 14:14-17

When the disciples gave Jesus that 2-piece catfish basket, ‘…He took [it and] blessed and broke [it].’ He blessed the little He had and it became much. Blessed means ‘to speak well of’ which means He spoke well about the little He had.So let me ask you this - what if you were faced with the same set of circumstances? Say for instance, you’re the Director of the Department of Health and Human Services Welfare Program and thousands of citizens come to you for SNAP benefits and there’s only $502 in the budget; how could you speak well about that? IKR. But this is what many of us are faced with in our own 2-piece budgets and this is what the Lord wants us to see.

We’ve got to learn how to see our 2-pieces in the same manner as Jesus. Jesus thanked God for the little He had and even though it wasn’t enough, He didn’t say to His disciples, ‘Man, why did you bring me this mess? What am I supposed to do with this?’ ‘…He took [it and] blessed and broke [it].’ Where others saw lack, Jesus saw abundance. Even though it was only a two piece, He was thankful for it.

He probably said things like, “Heavenly Father, I thank You that we have what we have. Thank You that there was someone in the crowd who listened to You and packed a lunch for themselves; not knowing it would feed thousands. Thank You that this boy’s mother loved her son enough to make sure that he had something to eat. Thank You that she had food in her house to feed her son. Thank You that this boy came to My meeting to hear the Word instead of playing his Xbox.” I could go on and on but do you get my point?

It’s not about thanking God for the lack, it’s about looking for things outside and around the lack that have God’s fingerprints all on it that you can be thankful for. When I started writing that, I didn’t know what I was going to say. But as I started thanking God, ideas started flowing. And if we’ll practice the same thing with our 2-piece budgets, we’ll soon get the same results that Jesus got with His.

PRACTICAL APPLICATION: In the comments section below, write at least two things that you can be thankful for about your situation. Don’t use a lot of Christianese and don’t put anything that you’ve heard in Testimony Service. Keep it 100!

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