Your All is Enough

By Janet Rubin

If you grew up attending Sunday school, you’ve heard this story a million times. Maybe you can close your eyes and see the whole thing in flannel-graph—a vast multitude of Jesus groupies covering a hillside, some perplexed disciples, a little boy offering a measly lunch, and Jesus making use of the gift.

It’s a wild story, but we’ve lost the “wow factor.” Sometimes it helps to put it in modern terms:

I sat in the nose-bleed section of the Centrum and marveled at the five thousand women gathered for the conference. What an experience to laugh, cry and worship with so many sisters in Christ! I shifted in my seat. We should have broken for lunch ten minutes ago. I got up and made my way down the steep steps. May as well use the restroom.

When I hit the hallway, I noticed a commotion. A group of women congregated, their elevated voices sounded distraught. I recognized the tallest woman as the conference coordinator. Her usually jovial continence was etched with anxiety. I moved closer and listened to the various women’s remarks. We don’t have enough money left in the budget to get someone else. How could our lunch caterer confuse the date? We don’t have time either. Lunch is now. What are we going to do? Order several hundred pizzas? How can we possibly feed all of these women?

My heart went out to them. What a horrible position to be in. Then I thought of the food I had in my backpack—a couple of apples and a Slimfast bar…

Okay, I’ll stop there. Can you imagine me bursting into that huddle and presenting the conference coordinator with my piddly offering when she had thousands of women to feed? It would be ridiculous! I’d only embarrass myself by making a foolish suggestion and, to be honest, I’m just selfish enough that I probably wouldn’t want to part with my food in the first place. I’d leave the generosity to someone with better resources. Perhaps the owner of Sam’s Club was in the crowd?

Sometimes we feel like our writing is inadequate. We read the masters or the writing of more advanced critique partners and think, “My writing isn’t as good. It doesn’t even compare.” We might be tempted to not even offer our work to the world at all, too afraid to embarrass ourselves.

But we need to remember one thing. What is impossible for a conference coordinator is a piece of cake for Jesus. He didn’t need a tractor trailer of food to satisfy that first century crowd. And he doesn’t need us to write like Stephen King before He can use us.

You may be starting off with limited writing experience and knowledge, or perhaps you’ve been honing your craft for years. The important thing is that you bring everything you have—much or little—to Jesus. That little boy didn’t hide a pack of Twinkies in a back pocket. He handed over his whole lunch, and that gift blessed the whole crowd.

Learn everything you can and do your best. Give that “best” to Jesus and see what He does. You may find that what looks mediocre to you touches lives in ways you can’t imagine.