Wednesday, November 9
You feed them
Scripture: Nehemiah 7-8, Psalm 130, Luke 9
Luke 9:12–13 Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, “Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here.”
13 He replied, “You give them something to eat.”
They answered, “We have only five loaves of bread and two fish—unless we go and buy food for all this crowd.”
Observation
The exhausted disciples came to Jesus late in the day. “Send them away,” they said of the crowd. Jesus answered, “You feed them.” This was clearly impossible—they had only five loaves and two fish. And there was no place near to buy food and if there was, they hadn’t near enough money. “You feed them.” Impossible.
John tells us (John 6:6) that Jesus was testing the disciples. How would they respond to an impossible challenge? Matthew tells us that when Jesus heard what they had, He said, “Bring them to me.” And the rest is history.
Jesus asked them to do the impossible to teach them to rely on Him.
Application
My pastor said, “You do the possible and let God do the impossible.” The possible for the disciples was to bring their inadequate resources to Jesus.
Sometimes I simply want to avoid or be done with difficult situations. “Send them away.” But Jesus sends me into the middle of the problem: “You deal with it.”
I wonder how many seemingly impossible situations stay that way because we ignore Jesus’ command to move toward the problem rather than sending it away. There are so many huge problems that I look at and think, “What could I possibly do? I’m only one small person.” But if I bring what I have, small and insufficient on its own, and give it to Jesus, He can do the impossible.
What impossibility am I facing? What is Jesus calling me to do? What do I have that I can bring to Him?
Do the possible; He’ll do the impossible.
Prayer: Lord, I pray big prayers. Now help me to live with big faith, believing that You could do something impossible with my meager offering.