While I was leading a seminar, I passed around a loaf of unsliced bread and asked each person to respond to it. One squeezed it and said, "It's fresh." Another commented, "It smells delicious." Still another noted, "It looks nourishing."

Finally someone said, "That's true, but I'm hungry!" With that, she broke off a piece and ate it. Her response said it all: Unbroken bread is useless.

One day Jesus faced 5,000 hungry people. Only by breaking the five loaves and two fish into pieces could He miraculously feed the multitude (Jn. 6:11), and He refused to waste any leftover fragments (v.12).

Not only did this miracle foreshadow Christ's brokenness on the cross--a breaking that would make the Bread of Life available to all--but it also speaks to me of the brokenness that believers must experience if they are to be used by God.

Do you fear a loss of usefulness due to broken health, broken hopes, broken promises? Fear not! Although some things lose their usefulness once they're broken, there are two things that become more useful: broken loaves and broken lives.

If you'll yield the fragments of your life to God, He'll not waste a crumb of what you're going through.  — Joanie Yoder