Hang On...

I’m still reading my way through Mark. And I read yesterday about Jesus feeding the 5,000 (Mark 6:30-44). But this post is not about the miracle itself. These past several weeks, the message for me in God’s Word seems to be, “Look at the details I’ve included in here.”

Verse 37 struck me. “But he answered, ‘You give them something to eat.’ They said to him, ‘That would take eight months of a man’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?’” Jesus had just been teaching a crowd of 5,000 men, not counting women and children. It was getting late and the disciples began to worry because no one had eaten. And they would have to go into the surrounding villages to find food.

So they approached Jesus and suggested that He “wind down the sermon” so the crowd could go and get food. And Jesus told them to feed the crowd! I can understand why the disciples got a little feisty with Him sometimes. They were looking at the impossibility of a task they were unprepared for.

Once again, I’m looking at the story through hindsight glasses. And I see Jesus manage to feed probably at least 8,000 people including the women and children with 5 loaves and 2 fish – we don’t know how, but it’s conceivable that the food multiplied right in His hands! So it’s easy for me to get impatient with the apostles failure to trust Him.

But I also have to think, what was Jesus going for here? What did He really want them to do? Is it possible that they missed out on participating in a miracle themselves because they lacked faith?

There’s a bumper sticker than says, “Hang on…I’m going to try something.” Truth is, that could be the slogan for every one of us as believers. Because we have the power at our disposal. We should all be going through life with crash helmets and seat belts!

So what exactly did Jesus expect from them? They could certainly have immediately asked God to provide for the people. Who knows how He would have answered that prayer!

We get all hung up on feeling powerless and unable to help.  I have a bad habit of saying, “I can’t do anything to help but I can pray.” I’ve got it backwards. I can pray and then everything becomes possible!