Everyday Miracles in Brown Lunch Bags

Fish and bread. Simple, everyday stuff. Depending on where in Canada you live, it might have looked like meat and potatoes, or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Either way, it was a common brown-bagged lunch. Yet, it was the stuff of miracles.

Most of us have plenty of opportunities for spectacular miracles. Either health, finances, marriage, or parenting struggles bring us to our knees time and time again. We pray, begging God for a miracle. We so desperately want the overnight miracle. Our eyes scan the horizon for something out of the ordinary but see nothing unusual.

Sometimes the miracle comes, but we’ve missed it. It looked like a brown bag lunch. Instead of instant healing, it was little bit by little bit after six months of chemo treatments. Or it was a baby born from someone else laid in our arms to call our own. Perhaps an invitation to Tim Horton’s when we’re lonely, or a snow day when we need the extra rest.

Jesus did something supernatural for the crowds. He gave them a brown bag miracle. Fish and bread. Of the 5,000 men plus all the women there that day, how many of them saw the miracle? All of them saw it, but we only know for sure that twelve disciples knew what it was. The others got what they expected—a common, everyday lunch. All they knew was “somehow” the event had been catered. Perhaps more would have noticed the miracle if it had been chicken cordon bleu! But it wasn’t. God used an everyday lunch. A common miracle.

Are there brown-bag miracles happening in your life right now that you might be missing because they seem so common? May we never overlook the supernatural in the everyday.

Respond in Prayer

Dear Jesus, thank you for being involved in my daily life. Forgive me for not always noticing the miracles you perform in my day. Please open my eyes to see your hand at work so I can praise and thank you. In your holy name, I pray. Amen.

Carla Anne Coroy