When a Little Goes a Long Way

(I wrote this on my Mum's blog, but the principles apply to everybody, so will share here too!)
One of my favourite stories is the miracle of the five loaves and two fish. When Jesus takes a little boy's lunch and makes it into more than enough to feed 5,000+ people.
When I was a teenager, I loved this story because I could see an application to my life. I had a big desire to see people saved and I prayed that God would take my 'little' life and use it to spiritually feed/help many people.
That is still my prayer, but recently I have learned another application.
A while back I was preparing for our plane trip to Holland. Since we live on the other side of the world, it is a very long way to go with four small children. I was unsure how flying would go. I prepared and brought lots of activities for them to do on the plane. But anything I packed, we would need to carry on the airports, so I couldn't take too much.
Usually I can't sleep when I am flying, so the thought of going so far with so little sleep and so many hours of looking after children in a small space was very overwhelming.
So little sleep and so few activities for the children for so many hours of flying.
Then I saw a new application in this story.
I prayed that God would take the little sleep I would get and the few activities we could carry and make them go a long way!
And He did. Our flights were far better than I had thought possible. The children slept for about half of each flight, and I got some sleep at a motel at our stopover. The children used a few activities on the plane, but between eating, sleeping and watching videos or playing games, they hardly needed them. I expected to be completely exhausted by the time we got to Holland, but I hardly felt sleepy at all in spite of my lack of sleep. The same kind of thing happened on our way home again. I was amazed! I still have a box of activities to find a place for!
I applied this same principle in another way this week. I was very organized with my shopping and got everything ticked off my list. Our child also had a birthday which I did shopping for. But afterwards, I realized there were other urgent expenses and things we needed that I had either forgotten about or simply hadn't realized. By now, I had spent the majority of my shopping money. Uh oh! Feeling a little stressed, I wrote down all the needs/expenses in my prayer journal. I prayed that God would do the same thing again. That he would use the 'little' money I had left to go a long way.
The next morning I got two emails. The first one said that one 'expense' was postphoned for another month. The second one said that something I had put on Trademe the night before had sold for the full 'buy now' price.
 Wow! One less expense and enough money for the other expenses!
He did it again!
What overwhelms you?
God can take the little resources you have and make them go a long way. The key is to give them to Him for His blessing.
Praise God!