One day Jesus was teaching a huge
crowd. They were following Him wherever He went especially because
they saw His miracles as He healed the sick. Now it was getting
late and the disciples suggested that Jesus send the people away in
order to get food in the local villages, because there was nothing
to eat in the deserted place. But Jesus suggested that they feed
them. In unbelief they stared at Him.
"It would take a small fortune to
feed them!" Philip replied. John 6:7
But then Andrew stepped forward
with a little boy. He had five barley loaves and two fishes and he
was prepared to share it with them all. Now you all know how Jesus
took these five loaves and two fishes and multiplied it and fed
five thousand men with it, not even including the women and
children!
But for now I would like to return
to the faith that this little boy had. We don't know his name or
anything about him, but he had mountain moving faith. Imagine you
were him. Here you are, far away from any village, far away from
food. But despite that you had planned ahead and brought food along
to sustain yourself in order to stay close to Jesus. And not only
that, you worked cleverly with your food, and didn't indulge in it,
you planned your meals to have enough left over to be able to
follow Jesus. And now here the masses around you run into a food
crises. They didn't plan as well as you did, they maybe even
gobbled up all their food at the start of the day and didn't have
any left like you did. What would you have done when the disciples
came around asking for food? Would you have shared? After all you
had planned and had been conscientious with your food and they
weren't. They deserved to go hungry.
The boy could have hid the food and
pretended that he didn't have any and ate in secret. He could have
ignored the disciples' plea, reasoning to himself that he was in
the right, but he didn't. No, he had faith in Jesus. He had faith
that Jesus would put his food to good use and that he will not go
hungry. He had more faith than the disciples had that followed
Jesus every day. They didn't think that Jesus would be able to
provide like this little boy did. And even worse it would
seem that they also didn't have the compassion on the crowd like
the boy did. He was prepared to share what he had with all these
people. He didn't want to see them grow faint from hunger.
He is a hero in my eyes. As I said
before we don't know who he was, but this miracle is mentioned in
all four gospels indicating its significance. We can learn a lot
from him. We can learn to share what we have, and look to Jesus
with mountain moving faith that He will provide all we need whilst
providing in the needs of others as well.
Lord Jesus, help us to have
mountain moving faith like this boy did. Help us to look up to You
and believe that You will look after us, even as we share what we
have. In Jesus' Name. Amen