Luke 9:16 · World English Bible
Luke 9:16 Meaning He Took the Five Loaves
He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to the sky, he blessed them, broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitude.
What does Luke 9:16 mean?
A mind holding only what looks like too little does not fix its eyes on the smallness. It turns first toward the source of love, and from that turning what seemed scarce begins to increase.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
Luke 9:16 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Christian Psychology
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
A mind holding only what looks like too little does not fix its eyes on the smallness. It turns first toward the source of love, and from that turning what seemed scarce begins to increase. The lesson is that abundance is not a property of things but of where the mind chooses to look; count the loaves and there is never enough, look up and there is no end to what can be given.
What love blesses it also breaks open and hands on, for what it has cannot be hoarded without ceasing to be itself. The little the mind was clutching becomes plenty the instant it is offered instead of guarded, and every hand that receives learns the same thing: the supply was never in the bread but in the willingness to give it away.
Loaves: the small supply the mind believes is all it has, meager while grasped and limitless once offered Fishes: the little the self holds in reserve against lack, multiplied the moment it is shared rather than kept Heaven: the source of love the mind turns toward before it looks at the need, where scarcity has no meaning Disciples: the parts of the mind that carry love outward, the hands through which what is given is passed along Multitude: the many seeming others who are fed, the whole field of minds that receive when one mind chooses to give
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Live Luke 9:16 today
- Before you start a day that looks too big for what you have, look up, out a window or at the sky on the way to the car, for ten seconds. Begin from there instead of from the list.
- Hand over something you were saving, the good bottle, the spare afternoon, the recipe you were keeping to yourself. Watch what it does once it is out of your hands.
- Under pressure at work, stop tallying what you lack and ask what you can put on the table right now. The smallest real offer moves things that the inventory never does.
What am I guarding that would be worth more given away?
The same truth in other traditions
Tao Te Ching 4
The way is like a well: drawn from endlessly and never drawn down. What pours out of it was never a pile that could run low.
Sufism · Rumi
Do not count the drops. Turn toward the sea, and the drop forgets it was ever small.
Hinduism · Bhagavad Gita 9
Offer even a leaf or a cup of water with love and it is received as everything. The measure is in the offering, not the object.
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