Jesus and his disciples had been super busy helping others so they got on a boat and headed off for some rest and quiet time together.
The crowds of people saw them get on the boat and recognized that it was Jesus and the disciples, so they ran ahead of them to meet them on the shore of Jesus' ship's destination (um. stalkers? come on, people!)
Instead of being irritated at the people or bitter that they wouldn't leave Him alone, Jesus "had compassion on them," and decided to spend time with them, teaching them.
THEN it started to get dark; disciples are tired. Maybe a little mad that the people have interrupted their should-have-been-restful getaway. Their idea? Send the people away to get something to eat. That'll motivate them to leave, right? When they realize that its dinnertime and they're hungry. Honestly, I probably would have wanted to send the people away too. That's sadly my default when I'm tired and peopled-out. I'm an introvert by design. But Jesus disagreed...
He told the disciples that THEY should give the people something to eat. Baffled of course, the disciples are all, "Do you want us to go broke trying to feed all these people? We'd have to go to Costco to buy enough food!" (Okay, there was no Costco, but we're talking mass quantities here.)
Jesus asks them what they DO have. Answer: 5 loaves of bread. And, oh yeah, 2 fish. Awesome. Everyone can nibble on this. BUT JESUS took what the disciples had, looked up to heaven and said a blessing, and broke the bread and divided the fish to be given out among the people.
The crowds sat down in groups, and after everything was passed around, "all ate and were satisfied." AND there were 12 baskets of broken pieces leftover. AND the story tells us that there were 5,000 MEN who were fed there that day (story doesn't even account for women and children!) WOAH.
Jesus made MUCH out of some. He brought A LOT from a little. He turned what we would view as lack and turned it into abundance (there were leftovers!)
This past weekend was our annual church garage sale to benefit our high school Spring Break Missions. Leading up to the sale, we kept looking at what had been donated and thinking, "I don't know if we have what we need. We have so much less stuff to sell than we have in years past." I knew in my heart, deep deep down, that Jesus KNEW what we needed to make these trips happen, and knew that He would provide like he always does. But we felt a little like we had 5 loaves and 2 fish. I didn't want to be nervous about it but sometimes I just felt nervous.
BUT THEN JESUS, proved Himself again as He always has. With what we had to sell, God provided MORE than enough to send our students out over Spring Break, and we had SO many items leftover (which made clean-up a pretty big chore, but I'm so thankful that we had too much rather than too little!) I don't know how God uses all of those second-hand "junk" treasures to provide what we need to help our students go serve Him over Spring Break. But HE DOES AND HE DID. I'm so thankful.
This reminder leaves me grateful and stirs in me a desire for a heightened awareness of what else in my life might seem like "lack" but presents an opportunity for God to show Himself as my perfect, abundant, faithful, provider. What about you? Where have you seen God come through and provide above and beyond what you expected?
"Now to HIM who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us..." {Ephesians 3:20}
PS. My score from the garage sale? A PENDLETON BLANKET. Hello! Also, a fabulous mirror. And a vase. Annnnd an iron. *Somehow, between our wedding registry and our almost 2 years of marriage, we have not owned an iron. We bought a puppy, but not an iron. Priorities? For the first 5 months of married life we must have just worn wrinkly clothes I guess, and since then we've used our parents' irons (made possible by our unique living arrangements.) SO for any of you who've looked upon our sometimes wrinkly clothes with disdain and thought "why can't they figure this out?!" there's your explanation. We'll start ironing more, now.
.JPG)
