Wednesday, August
1, 2018
Late in the
afternoon his disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s
already getting late. Send
the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy
something to eat.” 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!” “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.” Then Jesus told the disciples to have the
people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of fifty or a hundred. 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. They all
ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve
baskets of leftover bread and fish. A total of 5,000 men and their families were fed. Mark 6:35-44(NLT)
From what I know about
church people after 40 years of ministry, and how dinner on the grounds looks,
this was a much bigger miracle than even the Gospel writer
knew! Mark says they all ate
as much as they wanted; beloved, even if all of them weren’t
Methodist or Baptist, I can see the fish sandwiches lined up to the moon and
back!
And yet, the miracle report
intensifies, in that, after twenty-thousand men, women, and children (give or
take a Sunday School class) ate their fill.
And, what started as a meager lunch for one person, five loaves and two
fish, became twelve baskets of left overs.
One reality is unmistakable; God does math differently than they teach
in fourth grade, or M.I.T. With God, subtract a fish or two and you wind
up with twelve baskets-full and a disciple holding each basket with mouth open
and chin hitting the floor in disbelief!
There is a lesson you can
distil from this that’s a better catch than you can make at any secret fishing
hole you ever heard about: When God
blesses you with the go-ahead, you’d better hand it out faster than you’ve ever
dreamed…or the left-over blessings will swamp you!
I have a friend who has a
generous spirit; he and God kept my back from disintegrating back in the 1990’s. I sneezed too hard one time and literally
dislodged everything from its proper connection to my spinal column. For the next year an ice pack became my best
friend. My other best friend, my chiropractor,
knew how to re-introduce my spine and sanity, and did so without ever charging
me. (Those were the days before my
family could afford health insurance).
When we moved 500 miles away
to serve in another state, my friend, a man of obedient stewardship, took me to
lunch. He had taught me a lot about what
it means to be available to hold the baskets of left overs for God’s people. He had a knack for making money, but he was
even better about finding ways to give it into God’s harvest.
At lunch that day he said he
wanted to give me something he didn’t own, so that I could not own it too! Really!
He handed me a $100 bill; then he said: Preacher, keep this in your wallet. When the time comes that you see a need that
you can’t fill, remember how this got in your hand, and be obedient to God. If it leaves your hand to bless someone else
and God doesn’t replace it, every part of the Bible is untrue. If that ever happens you let me know.
It’s been more than 18 years
and I’ve found that just the opposite is true – God doesn’t just replace
it when I give that bill away; God multiplies it
faster than I could imagine. What God
has done with multiplying that first $100 has made my jaw drop to the ground
more times than I can count.
I like being a disciple
holding God’s basket!
For You Today
Let me sing a phrase for you this
morning from a popular Gospel song I love from the Gaither Vocal Band: Give
It Away – well…. not sing…but listen anyway:
If you want more happy than your heart will hold,
If you want to stand taller, if the truth were told,
take whatever you have and give it away.
If you want less lonely and lot more fun,
and deep satisfaction when the day is done,
throw your heart wide open and give it away.[2]
If you want to stand taller, if the truth were told,
take whatever you have and give it away.
If you want less lonely and lot more fun,
and deep satisfaction when the day is done,
throw your heart wide open and give it away.[2]
Go to VIDEO
[1] Title Image: Courtesy of Pixabay.com
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