Even If It’s Just Crumbs

What do we want from God? Well, all that He’ll give us, right? And what does He give us? The fullness of His grace and salvation. We couldn’t ask for more, right?

But we do, don’t we? We ask for more than simply what is according to His will. We hope and pray that His will will be in line with our will rather than simply rejoicing in what He gives us.

Even if that’s just crumbs. Well, that’s the way we should think, anyway. That’s the way the Canaanite woman thought [Matthew 15:21-28]. And that was after Jesus called her a dog. Her thought was, if this is an insult, it’s still not such a bad thing, because even dogs get something. Even dogs get to live in the house. Even dogs get the scraps from the table. (And they love those!)

And that’s better than being treated worse than a dog. That’s better than receiving nothing. Because when it comes to Jesus, when He gives it’s a lot. Even if it’s a little. Even if it’s just crumbs.

We want so much from God that we forget that He already gives us more than we can imagine. Maybe we don’t realize it because we’re too busy thinking about and asking for simply what we want and not what His will is for us.

If the woman was happy just to receive crumbs from the Savior, how much more should we rejoice in receiving the Vault of Heaven from our Lord? When we ask for things from our Lord, how much more should we be grateful that we don’t just receive crumbs but the very Bread of Life?

When we are searching and seeking for His will, how much more content should we be that He doesn’t just leave us in the dark but gives us His Very Word, the Bible, so that we may have an entrance into the Holy Will of God for us and for our lives?

Paul says in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?”

Even if He only gave us crumbs we would have reason to rejoice and be eternally grateful. As it happens, He gives us all things. He gives us His very own Son. He gives us eternal salvation in the suffering and death and resurrection of our Lord.

When He gives us all things in His Son He produces in us a desire to want more from Him. That’s because He wants to give more and more. He does so in His Word, in our Baptism, and in the Holy Supper of our Lord.

These are not just crumbs. They are the eternal gifts of God. But even if they were, they’d still be greater than anything for which we could ask or imagine.