Feed My Sheep

On the morning of Tuesday April 28th, I awoke at 6:34 AM for the third or fourth day in a row. When this happens, the times on the clock often point to a verse, and since I find these verses at least half the time in the book of John, it is my go-to book cipher, but your cipher might be very different so don’t take that as a rule (sometimes it's not even a verse reference.) 

For some reason I had a fleeting thought that perhaps I should look for it in the book of Job (maybe because of the particular season I’ve been in), and I was about to look it up on my phone when unbeknownst to me I fell back to sleep and had at least two dreams.

THE DREAMS

In one dream I was walking back to my dorm thinking that I hadn’t really been eating much or going to the dining hall, and I wondered why I was not making more use of my meal plan instead of leaving so many meals uneaten. I also noted that as a result I was losing weight. (This by the way, has been a real issue with my son in college.) Then, once I reached my room, I saw that my roommate had left me a thick slice of super yummy French bread, and I thought how sweet that was. 

I believe I walked through her room into a common room to heat my bread. I looked to my right, and in the corner of the room I saw a toaster oven and to the right of it stacks of thick slices of fresh French bread like the one that had been left for me in my room. The slices are exactly what it would look like if I sliced into the loaves of bread pictured on the Home page of my blog.

Some of it even had strawberry jam so I grabbed a piece of that and was about to put it in the toaster oven when I opened the door and discovered pancakes sitting inside. I looked again at the piles of food next to the toaster and noticed there was even an entire breakfast casserole of some sort in a Pyrex dish. It was a whole meal that had been prepared and portioned and yet was entirely uneaten sitting there going to waste. And I wondered why it hadn't been put it in the fridge… 

In the other dream, not knowing I was asleep, I tried looking up Job 6:34 and could not find the verse I was looking for so I began turning to the book of John. 

THE VERSE

When I woke up it was clear Holy Spirit wanted me to look up the verse in John. (It turns out there aren't 34 verses in Job 6 but who's checking?) Here’s what John 6:34 NKJV said:

“Then they said to Him, “Lord, give us this bread always.””

And immediately when I read this, Holy Spirit said to me, “I do always give you this bread. But it doesn’t all get eaten.”

What are the odds that I would have a dream about bread and get a verse about bread in the same morning? In fact, John chaper 6 is ALL about bread!

THE INTERPRETATIONS

The longer I have meditated and sought the Lord about this dream, the more He has unpacked. It is not my intent to unpack the whole thing here. The fact that He wants me to share this dream with you means that He may have a very specific thing He wants to communicate with each person who hears the dream. I told the dream to two people, and two very different symbols stood out to them. And each of them immediately had an impression regarding what that symbol represented. The first person said the stacks of bread were so plentiful because I was being given bread to feed many others. It was not all for me. The second person instantly knew that the pancakes represented food from the angels like that which was provided to Elijah (after his big victory over the prophets of Baal when he was being hunted by Jezebel and had suicidal ideation).

“Then as he lay and slept under a broom tree, suddenly an angel touched him, and said to him, “Arise and eat.” Then he looked, and there by his head was a cake baked on coals, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank, and lay down again. And the angel of the Lord came back the second time, and touched him, and said, “Arise and eat, because the journey is too great for you.”” ‭‭I Kings‬ ‭19‬:‭5‬-‭7‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Clearly I didn't even know about the existence of these cakes in the dream or in real life so I now know we need to ask the Lord to open our eyes that we may even see this provision brought to us by the angels so that we can make use of it!

Below is a simple starting place for interpreting the dream but if the Lord speaks something else to you, please share it in the comments at the end of the post.

1. Eat what you have before asking for more - What a tremendous amount of bread was being wasted, and I had no idea. We are always asking God for more bread when we haven't stewarded what He has already given to us. Be faithful with little, and He will give you more. We want new revelation. We want a now rhema word from God but what have we done with all the words He has given us before? Have we prayed over the promises He gave to us yesterday or last year? When we read the word do we meditate on it day and night and get filled up on the insight Holy Spirit is giving to us?
2. Don't lose weight in the spirit - When we skip meals, when we fail to wake up early in the morning and get the fresh rhema word, when we do not eat the meal Holy Spirit has prepared for us, we do not have the word we need to challenge and defeat the enemy. After Jesus fasted 40 days in the wilderness, He was tempted by satan. But for every challenge satan presented, Jesus had exactly the right rhema word to combat it. His sword of the spirit was razor sharp so He did not need to multiply words. The enemy's 3 challenges were met with 3 brief truths from the word, and just like that, satan was defeated. As we steward the rhema words, repenting where we need to repent and declaring what we need to declare, we gain weight and authority in the spirit. The goal is John 15:16: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.” Now that's authority!
3. Jesus is the bread of life - He explains this plainly in John 6 several times. “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”” John‬ ‭6‬:‭47‬-‭51‬ ‭NKJV ‬‬
   ‭‭When Adam and Eve sinned, they were driven out of the garden, and the way into Eden was blocked and guarded by angels so that humans could not in their fallen state take and eat of the tree of life and live eternally. But Jesus is that tree of life come to earth. He gave His body and blood for the feeding and saving of all those who would come to Him. Now He turns to His followers and says, "Take and eat." We eat of Him, and we have eternal life. And now we will dwell forever with Him.
4. Jesus is the true and living Word - In the opening words of John it says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” ‭‭John‬ ‭1‬:‭1‬-‭4‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

Holy Spirit told me that He does give us this bread always, every day, but much of it goes uneaten. We will never plumb the depths of the knowledge of who Jesus is which we find in His word. We must read it, meditate on it, consume it voraciously and carefully chew every bite, digesting it through multi-chambered stomachs like sheep and cows in order to draw out more and more nutrition from it.

It reminds me of how my husband always scoffs when he sees how little use people make of AI. People pay for ChatGPT, and then use it to get recipes for dinner like a glorified cookbook. There's nothing wrong with that, mind you, but it can do so very much more. Meanwhile my husband uses AI to create applications that revolutionize his businesses. Here's an example of how he uses it in his spare time: My son struggles with Canvas, the platform he has to use for his college courses. So one afternoon my husband sat down with my son and used AI to help my son create an alternative interface with Canvas so that my son never again has to interact with Canvas. The program my husband created presents all the information from Canvas in an easy to read format but it does so much more. It goes through the syllabi for the classes, tells him when all his assignments are due, and sets up daily plans for what to do when so that he can accomplish the work before the deadlines. It goes through the written texts and even sets up study guides and practice quizzes. I could go on and on about what this program can do but to summarize, in one afternoon my husband used AI to greatly increase my son's ability to be successful in his classes.

My point is that Jesus is literally infinitely more massive than AI. He is THE answer to every question, every fear, every challenge, every issue we face in life. And we're asking Him for a parking space when we go to Costco. He has LITERALLY EVERYTHING we need and we don't go to Him. We waste the bread. But that ends today!

5. Feed His sheep- For several mornings after the dream, Holy Spirit woke me up at 6:11 and that verse in John reads as follows:“And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down; and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted.” The feeding of the 5,000 was a sign. Jesus was showing the disciples and the world that He was the bread of life. He also showed how He works. His body was broken and then distributed to His disciples, and then it was His disciples who distributed the food to the masses. Ask the Lord what bread He may be giving to you that He may want you to distribute to the masses. Much of what He gives you is for you to share with others. Don't be afraid of running out if you are being obedient to what He calls you to do. If you give it away, you will find that not only do you have enough but you will have an entire basketful of leftovers for yourself.
6. The bread distributed to the disciples is also the Holy Spirit - “But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all:” 1 Cor 12:7 When Jesus died He sent to us the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. Now through the impartation of the Holy Spirit Jesus can be present with each one of us all the time every day. We have the mind of Christ. And beyond that we also have been given supernatural gifts for the edification of the body.

“But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.” I Corinthians‬ ‭12‬:‭7‬-‭11‬ ‭NKJV‬‬

How incredible is it that to EACH ONE is given a supernatural gift! My son would always ask us if were superheroes what gift would we want. Turns out we are all superheroes and we do have supernatural powers. That is part of being given the Holy Spirit. We are not expected to simply feed others through natural means. It reminds me of a verse earlier in 1 Corinthians when Paul explains that he did not come to them with wise and persuasive words but with demonstrations of power. The church today is often entirely wise and persuasive words with absolutely no supernatural power, no working of miracles, no supernatural healing, no gifts of prophesy, no words of knowledge, etc. You have an absolutely supernatural God living inside of you who intends to work through you in supernatural ways. We are told to earnestly pursue these supernatural gifts and ideally, you will be able to exhibit any one of these gifts as the situation calls for it. Yes, little ol' you can be used to do incredible miracles if you are willing to be used by God.

CONCLUSION

We are entering a time of great harvest and Jesus told us to pray to the Lord of the harvest to send in the laborers because the harvest is white and the workers are few. If we love Him, we will feed His sheep. All we need to do is seek the Lord, insatiably consume His word, be transformed by the renewing of our minds, yield our spirits to the work of Holy Spirit and obey whatever He asks of us.

Who's ready to raise your hand and say, "Here am I, Lord, send me."

Amen, Lord! Let it be to your servant as You have spoken.