Hi friends, and welcome to today's reading from the Our Daily Bread Devotional.

I'm Kirsten Holmberg, and I titled our reading, Abundance Meets Need.

School cafeterias, like large catering businesses, often prepare more food than is consumed

simply because they can't perfectly predict the need, and leftover food goes to waste.

Yet there are many students who don't have enough food to eat at home and who go hungry on weekends.

One U.S. school district partnered with a local nonprofit to find a solution.

They packaged leftovers to send home with students and simultaneously address the problems

of both food waste and hunger. While most people wouldn't look at an abundance of money as a problem

the way we do with wasted food,

the principle behind the school project is the same as what Paul suggests in his letter to the

Corinthians.

He knew the churches in Macedonia were experiencing hardship,

so he asked the church in Corinth to use their plenty to supply what they needed.

His objective was to bring equality among the churches,

so none had too much while others were suffering.

Paul didn't want the Corinthian believers to be impoverished by their giving,

but to empathize with and be generous to the Macedonians, recognizing that at some

point in the future, they too were likely to need similar help. When we see others in need,

let's evaluate whether we might have something to share. Our giving, however large or small, will never be a waste.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from 2 Corinthians, chapter 8,

verses 13 through 15. Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard-pressed

but that there might be equality at the present time your plenty will supply what they need

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