Will There Be Enough?
Add one more failure to the list. At least that’s where I’ve been about it…
“I thought you were going to put out a song a month.”…Yeah, yeah, yeah. So did I. (heavy sigh)
…”I must have launched out without proper planning, or God’s okie dokie, or something. I don’t have the skills or knowledge I need to produce the kinds of arrangements we released before. I have too many other ministry things to do to give it that much attention. The project is too big. My space is too small. I am too old.” (Are you catching my train of thought? Don’t get on. It’s going nowhere good!)
Then God…(Don’t you love it when He breaks in?) revived my dream to leave a legacy of original music for my children, grandchildren and the people of God. Sharing my desire with the Hub that evening, he said, “If you pick up something, you have to put something down. You do not have infinite time or resources.” I fell asleep troubled, and wondering what I would have to give up.
The next morning, still pondering the dilemma, I read something I’ve read dozens of times before (and heard before I could read) in Matthew’s account:
5000 men (plus women and children) have been pursuing this amazing Man, who heals broken and diseased bodies and restores health and peace to tortured minds all while speaking troubling-yet-captivating words, and now they are hungry and need to be fed. Anxious that the famished fans not become a hostile horde, the disciples bring this to Jesus’ attention, telling Him to send them on their way. However, the crowd is so large even if they went to the nearby villages there would not be enough to meet the need.
Full of compassion for the hungry hangers-on, and with a twinkle in His eye, He says, “They don’t need to go away; you give them something to eat.”
“All we have is five loaves of bread and two fish. That’s barely enough for us! How are we gonna do that?”
What Jesus is telling them to do is impossible! Even if they gave a only crouton and one flake of fish to each one, there was no way they had enough to do what He commanded them to do to meet the needs of others.
“Bring the resources to Me, and have the people sit down.”
He does not demean the loaves and fishes as inadequate or sub-standard. He asks for them to be surrendered into His hands for Him to break and administer according to His great power and wisdom.
It occurred to me that we were looking at our time and resources from the wrong end. All we could see was our limits. We needed to change our point of view.
We need to bring to Him our inadequate resources, letting His power produce what is needed to make not-enough into plenty (with leftovers)! I do not know what that will look like, but I can count on my surrendered resources to be made enough to meet the need.
So, as an everyday follower of Jesus, confronted with my impossible task, I can look at the crowd-about-to-be-mob and wish them away, or I can surrender my very limited resources to Him and watch Him satisfy the need, plus leftovers.
Waiting for the miracle as I am following Jesus every day in the everyday,
Christi
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