It Only Takes a Little Bit of Faith
Today, we read the account of Jesus feeding the four thousand. Usually, I read this passage and I can’t get beyond the fact that the disciples still question how Jesus is going to feed so many people. He has done this miracle before. For us, it was only in the last chapter. I wish I could find an accurate answer to how much time had passed between the two miracles. The Bible doesn’t give us specifics. Some scholars believe it could have been only a matter of months, while others believe it could have been as much as a year. Regardless, we are not talking about decades. Such a miraculous event should have stuck in the disciples’ minds for that amount of time. Even if it had been twenty years, I don’t think I could ever have forgotten something so extraordinary. Yet, here they are, presented with the same scenario and still lost for how to feed the crowd.
Before I berate these often forgetful and doubting men, I have to look hard at my own heart. How many times has God seen me through struggle after struggle and I still wonder how He is going to get me out my current predicament? I have begun stopping my worry as soon as my mind clears and reminding myself of everything God has done in my life up to this point. It is amazing how my perspective on whatever I am going through shifts. No longer am I worried how. Instead, I am looking for when.
When I step back from the obvious lack of understanding that the disciples showed by their question of how to feed the crowd, I see a much better lesson. In fact, the amazing preacher of old, Charles Spurgeon, stated the beauty of this passage best. He said, “Christ is the great Master in the art of multiplication. However small is the stock with which we begin, we have only to dedicate it to Him and He will multiply and increase it until it will go far beyond our utmost expectations. Bring your small talents, bring the little grace you have, to Christ for He can so increase your store that you will never know lack, but shall have all the greater abundance the greater the demand that is made upon the store.”
That is the big picture, the grand lesson I will take from today’s passage. I will remember that God doesn’t require big things from me. He merely requires what I have. If I have big, I will give Him big. However, if what I have is small, He will make it big. Isn’t that beautiful? When my faith is small, but I step out anyway, He shows me He is faithful. When my ability to forgive and walk in grace is shaky at best, He strengthens me and grants me peace to walk in His footsteps. We don’t have to be perfect. We just have to try. When we give Him what we have, He uses it in far greater ways than we could ever imagine. So, give him your few loaves of bread and see what He will do.
(Written by Keegan Harkins.)
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