So they collected them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces from the five barley loaves that were left over by those who had eaten. John 6:13
There were two kinds of kids in my high school: cool kids and all the others, including me.
Our school’s unique line of demarcation was revealed every day at lunch. If you brought your lunch in a brown bag—or, perish the thought, a lunch box—you were not cool. If you bought your lunch at the school cafeteria, you were cool. If you occasionally bought an ice cream sandwich or a “push-up,” you were very cool, but you never bought an apple or an orange. These were eaten by kids who brought their lunch, and we all knew they weren’t cool. And so it went.
Since high school, I have successfully gotten over living with the uncool, brown-bag stigma. In fact, I am so completely over this that I am now proud of having carried my lunch. In fact, I have since that time carefully thought through the brilliance of lunch packing and the lessons it teaches.
The boy who packed his lunch on the field trip to see Jesus knew about these lessons. In fact, his story will go down as one of the great miracles of all time. The boy—and probably his mother who packed it—are conducting a Brown Bagger’s Clinic. Listen to this:
If you want to enjoy lunch on time, you’re going to have to pack it before you’re hungry. The Boy Scouts have touted this one since their founding: be prepared. Packing your lunch in the morning may even be a little nauseating—bologna always smells awful before eight a.m.—but it’s the only way you’re going to be able to eat when you are hungry. In your mind, project yourself into the future and ask yourself what you’ll need to survive. Business consultants would call this thinking strategically.
Healthy food is usually heavier to carry than junk food. If you don’t believe this, weigh an apple and a Twinkie®. If you’re still not convinced, weigh a bag of corn chips and a head of lettuce. Of course, a Snickers® bar is heavier than a carrot stick, so don’t get too carried away on this thing about weighing food and nutrition.
When you carry your lunch, you always get to decide what you eat. What matters most when you carry your lunch is that you’ll not be tempted to eat what someone else made. Because you’d rather not be victimized by what another person thought you’d enjoy, packing a lunch keeps you in charge of what goes into your body.
If you’re going to see Jesus, planning ahead and knowing in advance what you want based on what you need could result in a miracle. And wouldn’t you know it, this incredible truth was brought to us by way of a boy—a kid who probably wasn’t old enough to shave. A kid who will be, for all eternity, an example for all humankind.
If this lad had been in my high school class, think how foolish all the “cool kids” would have felt when they found his story tucked away in God’s holy Word. Imagine how uncool they would have felt? Can’t you see how important it is to do the right thing even when you don’t feel like it? Even if it’s not cool. Every time. Consider it packing your own lunch before you’re hungry.