“They all ate and were satisfied.” Matthew
14: 20
God is always ahead of us. He has a comprehensive
plan about our present and future. This is the security we have in Him. In Matthew 14: 14 – 20, it was Jesus with
His disciples on the one hand, and the crowd on the other. Both Jesus and His
disciples knew there was a need. The crowd must eat, for they were hungry.
Solution One came from the disciples. “Send
the crowds away, so they can go and buy themselves some food” (v. 15). Does that sound familiar? Anxiety
… veiled in good intention. They are hungry. Don’t keep them any longer. Let them
go… only if they go away from us and relieve us of that responsibility! We shouldn’t
blame ourselves, though. We have come to the end of our road, and that was the
much we could do to help the situation.
Solution Two came from the Lord. “They
do not need to go away. You give them something to eat” (v. 16).
In a remote desert? What could
the helpless disciples do? What did they have? Some five barley loaves and two
fish, which John 6: 9 suggests were
borrowed from a boy. And what was that for twelve hefty, hungry men, much less
for thousands? The disciples have reached their limit, and just there the Lord
took over.
Solution Three: “Bring them (what you have) here to me” (v. 18). From
there the limit of the disciples was absorbed in, or rather transformed into
the Lord’s sufficiency. Five barley loaves and two fish that would barely feed
and satisfy twelve men would now satisfactorily feed probably over ten thousand
people, since the men alone were 5,000, and there were women and children who
could have outnumbered the men.
Your budget probably outstrips your income, and in
your good-intentioned anxiety you want to shrink from some legitimate
responsibilities, perhaps including tithe. You have, like the disciples,
reached your limit. Just one more step to experiencing God’s sufficiency: Take
what you have (your salary, business turnover, farm produce, etc) and go to
God, together with the responsibilities facing you. Let Him transform them into
His sufficiency. We write this out of experience, not merely by reading it in
Scripture, and we can testify that our God is truly the one who “knows
that we need those things” (Matthew
6. 32). We cannot count the number of times God, in response to our
approaching Him on SPECIFIC requests, has transformed our limit into His
sufficiency. We ain’t any different from you. If God has been doing it for us,
He can do it for you too. With Him, you will eat and be satisfied both physically
and spiritually in Christ. Your longing soul will be satisfied and your needs
met. Experience God’s sufficiency this New Year. Peace be with you!
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