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John 6:9 NLT
‘There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?’
Sometimes it can be all too easy to live in our imagination, but it is less comfortable to deal with the real world. At the feeding of the 5,000 recorded by John, reality suddenly impacts the disciples who were so used to the role of enthusiastic observers when Jesus asks them, ‘Where shall we buy bread so everyone can eat?’ One of them points out a lad with five loaves and two fishes, before concluding there’s not enough for this size of crowd.
Reflecting on my relationship with Christ over the years, I have come to recognise two things. First,
I often want to hang out with Jesus when he carries all the responsibility and I have all the fun of being his friend along for the ride. The thing is, Jesus has a commitment and an investment in me growing up. This involves risk, leadership and self-management as I navigate my way through life as God’s faithful servant.
The second truth I have recognised is that I have to learn to extend my faith. Not simply through listening to the encouraging testimonies of others or reading and retelling the exploits of great saints. No! I have to find faith to reach for what appears impossible to me. After all, as scripture reminds us, my impossibility is merely the threshold for God’s possibilities.
And so it proved here. Apparent insufficiency made way for a meal for all those gathered together, with an abundance of leftovers! This is a picture that God is not simply a God of sufficiency alone; rather, he is super-abundant in his provision. For many of us, if we are honest, all of life is ‘just getting by’. Yet God isn’t interested with getting by, for it achieves no more than satisfying my own selfish desire for self-survival. God wants to enlarge my capacity for faith so that I might see the need that surrounds me and have sufficient faith to feed both myself and others. The Bread of Heaven is a public, not a private, banquet.
QUESTION: What response does Jesus’ question provoke within you?
PRAYER: Lord God, grow my faith so that I can offer what you have given me to be a blessing to others.
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