Reading: Mark 6:35-44 New International Version (NIV)
Welcome to today’s Monday edition where we focus on verse 37 But he answered, “You give them something to eat.”
In the last few days, we have seen how the disciples came to Jesus and instead of asking Him what they should do, they came with what they considered as “logical solutions” to the problem they had in their hands. As I reflected on this, I realised that we do this many times as human beings. We go to God with already pre-conceived idea of what the solution should be. We pray not for God’s will to be done but for our will to become God’s will. We sort of just need Him to rubber stamp our will. In this case, Jesus listened to the disciples and in verse 37 answered them – that they should give the people something to eat. These were not few people – feeding them was going to be a huge task. Clearly the need in front of them was far bigger than the resources they had and in their hands and this is the core of our message here.
As we serve and walk in obedience to God, there will be many times when what God is asking you to do is far bigger than the resources you have in your hands. It is in moments like this that the supernatural power of God can be revealed to the glory of His name if we step out as follows:
- Don’t look at just what you have in your hands / Don’t let what is in your hands stop you from moving forward
You have to fight the natural tendency to look at what we have in our hands. When you have God, you have all His resources available to you. The natural tendency is for us to wait until what we have is enough and this displays lack of faith. So we need to develop the habit of hearing God and moving not based on what we have. You want to start a business, get going – don’t wait until you get what you think is enough capital. Make the start with what you have got and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. You may have to start small and that’s ok but get started trusting that God will make a way as you move forward. All great businesses that you see today started as an idea in someone’s mind. All the people you admire today started from somewhere. It is not where and how you start, but who you start with and the willingness to keep moving forward towards your goal.
- Don’t focus on what initially looks like a loss to yourself
The disciple’s first reaction was – this would be a big loss if we have to get bread for 5,000+ people. Why would we want to do this? You know this is key biblical principle that we see in business daily. You have to make an investment for you to get returns. You have to take money from the bank and put it into a business, work hard at it, nature it and one day, the business gives you returns. If you don’t have a growth mind-set, you will see this phase as painful but if you have the correct attitude, you will see this as a necessary step to future growth. So stop looking at how expensive it is or how much money you have to put in – look at this a seed. Which farmer complains about putting seed into the soil during planting? If you approach life with this attitude, every problem or challenge that God allows your way becomes an opportunity to plant a seed. Once the seed is on the ground, a harvest is bound to come. Farming is very interesting – you can’t go harvest from a farm you never planted and the size of your harvest is dependent on how much seed you put on the ground. God will multiply based on a seed. So if you don’t plant, there is nothing God can do. His hands are tied. You plant one seed – God can only multiply the one seed. You plant 1,000 seeds, God will multiply the 1000. So God determines the multiplication factor, but we determine the number to be multiplied. This is interesting nd I am running out of time.
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