Speaking to the soul

We have five loaves of bread and two fish.

Jesus said to his disciples, “You feed them.” “With what?” they asked. “We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people!” “How much bread do you have?” he asked. “Go and find out.” They came back and reported, “We have five loaves of bread and two fish.”
Mark 6:37-38 NLT

Jesus’ disciples were on a very steep learning curve on this particular day. The day began by them seeking to get away from the hordes of people who were eager to listen to Jesus. Jesus himself suggested that it would be good for them to go away to a quiet place and get some rest. That spectacularly failed as the people rushed round the lake to the quiet place even before Jesus and his disciples got there! The first lesson of the day was that with Jesus things don’t necessarily work out in the way that you expect.

The disciples accept that their quiet time with Jesus isn’t going to happen and sit back to listen to his teaching. But the moment comes when they’ve had enough and they suggest to Jesus that because they are in a remote place and it’s late it would be good to send the people home. But Jesus doesn’t like this idea at all and suggests that they feed the people. The day has gone from bad to much, much worse for the disciples. They work out that Jesus’ proposal is totally impractical because they would never possibly be able to buy the food for such a huge crowd.

This ushers in the second major lesson of the day. Jesus challenges them to find what was available and as a kind of sick joke they point out that they could only find five loaves and two fish. It was completely crazy. The crowds would never get fed. What the disciples hadn’t counted on was ….. Jesus. Jesus took the food and blessed it and there was more than enough for everyone. That was quite a lesson! And it’s a lesson that we need to listen to as well. As we face constant challenges in life Jesus wants us to bring to him whatever we’ve got – however small.

QUESTION

What are you willing to make available to Jesus today?

PRAYER

Thank you Lord that you are able to work miraculously with whatever we put in your hands. Amen.