Mark, chapter 6, records the well known story of Jesus feeding the 5,000. The background of the story is interesting. Jesus and his disciples had been attempting to get away for a mini retreat. They had been besieged by people wanting to be healed and they were exhausted and hungry. But as they attempted to escape by boat, the crowd managed to follow them along the shore. Jesus responded to the crowd and ministered to them because they seemed like sheep without a shepherd and he had compassion for them. The disciples reached a point where they wanted to send the people away to find food so they could finally get some rest themselves. But Jesus wanted to teach them a lesson about provision and material things. He said to the disciples, "You feed them." They replied that it would take months of work to earn enough money to buy the food for the crowd. Then Jesus told them to bring whatever food they already had to him. Of course he then did the miraculous and multiplied five loaves of bread and two fish and fed the entire crowd, with leftovers filling twelve baskets. I think that we need to remember that it isn't what we don't have that we need to be concerned with, but what we do with what we already have. When real needs exist in our lives and the lives of those around us, we need to trust the Lord to multiply what he has already given us to meet those needs. In the process of provision we find the person of the living God.
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Mark 6:38 "How much bread do you have?" he asked. "Go and find out."
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blessings,
Rob Smith
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