(Site B53, Wilson Creek Valley Overlook, Blue Ridge Parkway)
I’m sitting here in my SUV at this overlook, watching a storm pass over the mountain on its way east toward the North Carolina piedmont. (This is the same storm that chased me down from Beacon Heights about a few moments ago!) I am looking over into Wilson Creek Valley, where just a few moments ago there were only light gray clouds visible. You could barely make out the outlines of some of the low-lying hills through the clouds. But now the wind has blown the clouds further down the mountainside, and more and more of this amazing vista is emerging from beneath the gray.
It shows me once again Your perspective, O God. You look down on all of it. You see what is coming, what is here, and what has passed. You see in detail and you see panoramically. Nothing escapes Your gaze. Thank You for seeing me and knowing me. Thank You for choosing to love me and to be interested in my tiny little life.
Over the past two weeks, I have heard three references to the Bible story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. I have begun to think that perhaps there is some significance to that “coincidence.” So I just finished reading the story again – one that I have heard hundreds of times since childhood – and the words seemed to leap off the page and spring to life again as I read it. Here is the way it is told in Mark 6:
35 Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. 36 Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat.” 37 But Jesus said, “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!” 38 “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.” 39 Then Jesus told his disciples to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 SO they sat down in groups of fifty or a hundred. 41 Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share. 42 They all ate as much as they wanted, 43 and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish. 44 A total of 5,000 men and their families were fed from those loaves!
Here are a few things I notice about this story:
(1) The disciples don’t immediately turn to Jesus and expect a miracle. They begin by thinking in finite terms – which, I must admit, I probably would have done also. I have a tendency to turn to supernatural intervention as a last resort instead of a first option. And I think God wants us to use the good brains He gave us sometimes. I think it pleases Him when we do, actually. But in some instances – 5,000 hungry men and their families, for example – I think it actually seems more logical to turn to the guy that just a little earlier had calmed a storm with His voice!
(2) Jesus says, “You feed them.” The disciples say, “With what?” And then Jesus answers with another question (and I paraphrase), “What do you have?” God wants us to use what He gave us: compassion, organizational skills, imagination, drive, brains, sense of humor, artistic talent, wealth, etc. When we are willing to place these in the hands of Jesus, then the miracle can commence.
Just think about it. Jesus could have quickly solved this dilemma by having fish sandwiches magically appear before each person there. With just a word from His lips, He could have turned the rocks on the hillside into bread – even Satan himself knew that Jesus could do that trick. But He didn’t. He used the disciples’ work. And here’s some more food for thought: do you think it was easy to get 10,000 people (remember: 5,000 men and their families) organized into orderly groups of fifty and a hundred… without a P.A. system or a megaphone? I can just picture the disciples organizing the crowd… spreading the instructions by word-of-mouth… calmly answering bewildered questions and resolving disputes… entertaining the hungry children until the baskets of food arrived. These ordinary men used what they had and rose to the occasion. And Jesus used what they had – not just the food that they found, but also the skills that they possessed – then added what only He could do; and through this collaboration, they accomplished the extraordinary. And He wants to use us – our finite, flawed, fleshly selves – to accomplish the truly remarkable and inexplicable. The equation is FINITE + INFINITE = MIRACLE.
(3) In the end, there were twelve basketfuls left over. Jesus provides more than enough to help us help others and accomplish His purposes. He will give us courage, wisdom, strength, and compassion enough to do whatever He instructs us to do (just like He instructed the disciples that day on the hillside). All we have to do is obey Him.
The first time I heard this Bible story referenced was last week when I attended a worship service at All Souls Church in Knoxville, TN. The pastor pointed out that this story exemplifies how Jesus will help you finish well anything that He calls you to do. The disciples didn’t come back after feeding the first 1,000 and say, “Ummm, Jesus? This is so embarrassing, but... we just ran out of food.” Jesus will provide more than we need. He will totally provide for us if we are doing what He instructed us to do.
The second time I heard this story was when Mark Batterson referred to it in his encouraging book, “In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day.” He is talking about trusting God even when the odds are stacked against you. Batterson quips that the odds against Jesus and His disciples were 5,000 to 7! He says:
The truth is this: “To the infinite, all finites are equal.” There is no big or small, easy or difficult, possible or impossible. When it comes to God, there are no degrees of difficulty. There are no odds when it comes to God. All bets are off. (1)
Batterson asks a few sentences later, “How big is your God?” (2) My answer to this challenging question? Well, most days it is this: “God is big enough to handle anything, empower anything, and fund anything He calls me to do.” It is all a matter of perspective – and I can achieve the extraordinary when I see things through God’s instead of mine.
The third reference to this story was toward the end of Batterson’s book where he quotes an email he received from one of his church members named Kim:
What limits are you listening to? “I’m too old.” “I have a family to think about.”… “What if I fail?” “It’s too expensive.” The list goes on forever. Remember this: we serve an unlimited God with unlimited resources. A God who looked at a few loaves and fishes and saw a banquet for five thousand people. (3)
God can fund my “big idea,” whatever it may be. He can provide everything I need. I just need to trust and follow Him.
I will trust You, O God. Thank You for Your provision, Your presence, and Your power. My declaration of total faith in You is the same one that Paul wrote in Ephesians:
13 I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.
ENDNOTES:
1. Mark Batterson, In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day (Colorado Springs: Multnomah Books, 2006), 33.
2. Batterson, In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day, 34.
3. Batterson, In a Pit With a Lion on a Snowy Day, 156.
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