John 6:12-13 (NIV): When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.
Food is one of God’s great blessings that is so easy to take for granted when it is plentiful and easily available. Very few people in lands of plenty like America consider their food a blessing, or even think about the fact that it all comes from the hand of God. In fact, very few Christians genuinely thank God for their “daily bread” whenever they sit down to eat.
Jesus understood that every scrap of food that He (or anyone else) had was a gift from the hand of God. So He always gave thanks whenever He ate. (And not a formal prayer rattled off with only His mouth. He looked to His Father with all of His heart and said a sincere “thank You.”) And He needed to make sure that His disciples also remembered that the food that God provided was a miraculous blessing – whether it came from a bakery or meat shop, or whether God provided it out of thin air, like the manna, and like this food for 5000+. So He told them to gather up everything that was left, so that nothing that the hand of God provided would be wasted.
That same mindset would do God’s people good today. When so many in the world must go without, often not even getting one full meal a day, we who have enough to have leftovers should be manifold times more thankful. We should be careful to use up what God has provided so that it doesn’t go to waste, even sharing it with others if necessary, so that God’s great blessing is never wasted.
Father, thank You for Your great blessings. Forgive us, Lord, for all too often forgetting to thank You with grateful hearts for all that You have provided, and for all too often letting Your bounty be wasted, ending up in the garbage. You have indeed blessed us with an abundance that other nations envy. Help us to not only be eternally grateful for it, but responsible with it. Amen.