What’s in your hands? – Thursday, 14 September

Jesus had been teaching the multitudes all day and it was now late (Mark 6:34-35). It’s recorded that there were 5000 men in this multitude – these men seem to have been more concerned with what Jesus had to say (spiritual food) than with what their stomachs were saying. This is a miracle: 5000 men didn’t consider their hunger for food! It was the disciples who came to Jesus and told Him the time and said that they should maybe dismiss the meeting so people could go to the villages around to get food. I bet they were hungry and using the people as an excuse! Jesus responds to them with a challenge…

“But He answered and said to them, “You give them something to eat.”
And they said to Him, “Shall we go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread and give them something to eat?”
Mark 6:37 NKJV

The disciples responded to the challenge by looking at how expensive it would be to feed the crowd. There were 5000 men; if you include the women and children there would have been between 10,000 to 15,000 people. It would have cost them about R55,000 (or US$4000) to feed this multitude. It seems that they didn’t have this kind of money available – but Jesus knew what He was doing.

“But He said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they found out they said, “Five, and two fish.”

Mark 6:38 NKJV

Jesus asked them what they had. Often we look at a task that we need to do and automatically respond by saying, “We don’t have enough!”. The task might be your budget for making dinner for your family or your budget for a building project at work. It doesn’t really matter how many zeros there are in the budget (if you’re working with tens, thousands or millions), we often respond the same: “It’s not enough!”. We forget that “with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26 ESV). Little is much in God’s hands!

 “41  And when he had taken the five loaves and the two fishes, he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and brake the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before them; and the two fishes divided he among them all. 42  And they did all eat, and were filled. 43  And they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments, and of the fishes. 44  And they that did eat of the loaves were about five thousand men.”
Mark 6:41-44 (KJV)