Take a few deep breaths to center your heart and your mind as you prepare to meet with God.

Meditation on God

God has been providing for people for as long as people have been around. Genesis chapters 1 and 2 give accounts of all of the different kinds of fruits and other vegetation God provided for the original humans, including a tree whose fruit would maintain someone’s life for eternity. For people today who live in the United States like me, God oversees the planting, growth, harvest, processing, packaging, transportation, and stock of the food we find on the shelves of our grocery stores. Take a moment and think about the width and the depth of our care that God watches over.

Teaching

The apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all they had done and taught. Then Jesus said, “Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile.” He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn’t even have time to eat. So they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone. But many people recognized them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and got there ahead of them. Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things. Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat.” But Jesus said, “You feed them.” “With what?” they asked. “We’d have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people!” “How much bread do you have?” he asked. “Go and find out.” They came back and reported, “We have five loaves of bread and two fish.” Then Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of fifty or a hundred. Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish. A total of 5,000 men and their families were fed. (Mark 6:30-44)

Have you ever been so consumed with excitement about something that you were willing to skip a meal? Some people I know skip meals regularly, but that is not something I’ve made a regular habit of. My body reminds me at the regular three times each day, if not more, that it’s time to eat, but there have been seasons, moments, and projects in my life that have made me forget to eat altogether. Sometimes this has been something silly, like playing video games with my friends. Sometimes it is because I am hyperfocused on a project for school or work that really captures my interest. I have never, however, skipped a meal because I am totally captivated by a person.

The level of the crowd’s excitement around Jesus and his disciples in this passage definitely reached the meal-skipping level.  The disciples only discuss how to feed the whole crowd because the entire crowd of 5,000 men and their families chose to follow Jesus without knowing where their next meal would come from. On top of that, they weren’t invited to come along with Jesus’ normal posse–they saw where His boat was headed and ran around the shore of the sea to find him. Even better than that, they had never seen Jesus do any of these things directly. A few paragraphs before our passage, Jesus had delegated His ministry of casting out demons, healing people, and preaching a message of repentance to his disciples, sending them out two by two. Their imperfect demonstrations of Jesus’ ministry are what hooked people and made them crave more, hungry to see and hear it from the perfect source Himself.

Jesus saw their hunger for Him and had deep compassion on them, overcoming Him and His own disciple’s exhaustion and hunger, but when his disciples saw this same crowd following him, their response was anxiety. Where Jesus saw people to be loved and knew that God could do anything to provide for them, His close 12 followers saw people who needed what they themselves could not give, even though they had seen Jesus heal, cast out demons, and give them the power to do the same. None of them had multiplied food or seen Jesus do it before, and for a moment, they doubted that God would be their provider and sustainer like he had their whole lives up to this point. Once again, the power of God prevails over people’s doubts and large needs when Jesus, using only five small loaves of bread and two small fish, feeds all approximately 15,000 people there with twelve baskets of leftovers. Just like God providing everything the original humans needed in the Garden of Eden, Jesus is seen here providing everything that a large crowd of people needs with compassion in his heart. He has promised to do this again and again, all the way through the end of time where we who trust in Jesus to provide for our needs will have more than we could ever need in paradise with Him.

Examination

Isaiah 55 begins with this:

“Is anyone thirsty?

    Come and drink—

    even if you have no money!

Come, take your choice of wine or milk—

    it’s all free!

Why spend your money on food that does not give you strength?

    Why pay for food that does you no good?

Listen to me, and you will eat what is good.

Take a moment and ask yourself this question: How many of the needs in my life do I rely on God for, and how many do I try to provide myself? Try and put it in a percentage.

No matter how you answered, take a moment to thank God for everything he has done to provide for you.

Memory Verse

As you go throughout your day today, find a way to remind yourself of how Jesus sees you in Mark 6:34:

“Jesus had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd.” (Mark 6:34b)