Lisa notes

“We had no idea what we were getting into. It was never any part of the plan . . . but it would prove to be a decision that would change our lives. It would change our view of God. It would change the way we saw the world. And we weren’t looking for any of that.”
– Adam Walker

Only Two Fish

They saw hungry school kids. They saw families in need. They saw a God ready to move.

So Adam and Jennifer Walker did something.

They collected food, stored it temporarily in a small school closet, and handed it out to kids for the weekend.

But it wasn’t enough. All they had were two fish to feed a multitude of people.

Adam shares the story of what happened next in his book, Two Fish: Discovering the God of Immeasurably More. It’s challenging. It’s personal.

And it’s true. I know because I saw it.

I see it still.

Hand It Over

Contrary to the stereotype you may have of Alabama, you may be surprised that our high-tech city of Huntsville, the Rocket City, is full of professionals with big salaries and big houses and big dreams. Aerospace and military technology here bring in the best brains and generate a lot of money.

But the wealth never reaches everyone. Many in our county are among the poorest of the poor. Adam and Jennifer saw our poor every day at Sparkman Middle School where they were both teachers.

So they handed over their two fish to God in a great leap of faith. They began a food pantry in the shadow of Huntsville in our own community of Harvest.

I remember its beginnings. The prayers. The donations. The volunteers.

And the hungry people who came to be fed, both physically and relationally.

That was almost four years ago. House of the Harvest is still going strong.  It continues to evolve to better meet the needs of those who line up every Saturday morning. My husband Jeff is one of the many volunteers who shows up next to Adam and Jennifer on the weekends to shine a light in our community.

Adam has now gathered his miraculous fish stories into Two Fish so everyone can understand that God isn’t finished multiplying our meager offerings. God takes what we give him, and turns it into something bigger than we can imagine.

He did that with House of the Harvest. He can do that with our fish, too.

What do your two fish look like? How can you give them to God?

Quotes from Two Fish

Here are some of my favorite lines from Adam in Two Fish.

“There was no denying . . . God was at work and He was providing in overwhelming ways. It was through all these experiences that I learned that the God of the Bible is the God of today. He loves the same, provides the same, and answers prayers the same.

He is the God who can multiply two fish into twelve baskets of leftovers . . . and that hasn’t changed, and it won’t change.”

~ * ~

“God had been making plans for that piece of land, that building, and for the Harvest community all those years before. . . . And He showed up at the moment that looked the darkest, the time when everyone thought it just wasn’t going to come together.”

~ * ~

“For me, I would rather give God too much credit than not enough.”

~ * ~

“Learning to think as ‘we’ instead of ‘me’ is the key to us accomplishing things that are bigger than ourselves.”

~ * ~

“There is something special about doing something for someone that can never repay you. Jesus was onto something when He said that 2,000 years ago. Matter of fact, I like to think that if Jesus were around today, He would be in Harvest, Alabama having breakfast at House of the Harvest on Saturday mornings.“

~ * ~

“All of us, together, on a hill, cannot be hidden. It’s a statement of community.”

~ * ~

“God is as big as we believe Him to be.”

* * *

When you buy Two Fish (you can get it here from Amazon), proceeds go to Two Fish Ministries to help real people with real needs.

Some of my own lessons from House of the Harvest:

• How to Raise a Godly Child
  She collected over $100 from her fellow elementary students to donate to House of the Harvest. How do we raise a child like this?
• Why Don’t You Ask? And Why You Probably Should
  I hope to see Mrs. B again at House of the Harvest. There is so much more to know. And questions can get us there.
• No Pride in Giving, No Shame in Taking
  Let none of us think we’re always the giver. Or always the taker. We’re all some of both. That’s how God designed community to work.

When I was young, I thought my eternal life would begin once my physical life ended.

But as I got older and read more and listened more, I realized my eternal life had already begun. I had already crossed over from death to life in the spiritual realm.

But what does that mean exactly?

This new book by John Ortberg fleshes out the concept of eternal life, Eternity Is Now in Session: A Radical Rediscovery of What Jesus Really Taught about Salvation, Eternity, and Getting to the Good Place.

“Eternal life isn’t just about the future. We can have it now. It’s not just about there. We can have it here.”

In a sentence, eternal life is knowing God. Not just knowing about him, but knowing him. (Well, as much as we can with our limited capacities.)

Ortberg explains:

“Jesus—and the entire New Testament, for that matter—defines eternal life only once, with great precision, and in a way that has been largely lost in our day: ‘This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’ (John 17:3, NRSV). Eternal Life = Knowing God.”

Once our eternal life has begun, even physical death can’t stop it.

I recommend this book if you want to think more on salvation and the journey of walking with Jesus.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from this book.

“Heaven does not contain God; God contains heaven.”

~ * ~

“Everybody has a gospel. This is Jesus’ gospel: God is present here and now. God is acting.”

~ * ~

“Bringing up there down here is God’s project.”

~ * ~

“Every time you are in conflict with someone, when you want to hurt them, gossip about them, avoid them, but instead you go to them and seek reconciliation and forgiveness, the Kingdom is breaking into this world.”

~ * ~

“Salvation is not about what God wants to do to you; it’s about what God wants to do in you.”

~ * ~

“Our greatest need is not to be saved from what might happen to us but to be saved from what might happen in us; not from where we might end up but from who we might become.”

* * *

My thanks to Net Galley
for the review copy of this book.