Impossible Situations

The feeding of the 5000 men is the only miracle of Jesus repeated in all four gospels.  We know that if something is given once in the Bible, it is true and we should believe it, but when the Holy Spirit repeats Himself, it must be because there is a lesson of surpassing importance.  

When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.” But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” (Matthew 14:15,16)

The disciples gave Jesus the reasons that He needed to do something, to send them away: bad location, not enough time. There are times that we find ourselves in impossible situations.   We find ourselves in desperate straits with no way out, no good options, and no human way of remedying our situation. The disciples make a very practical suggestion: “Send them away and let them find food.” That’s logical. The suggestion is not made from bad motives. In themselves the disciples had no resources to meet this enormous need. They had no food. What else could they do? Answer: They could do nothing!

 The disciples feel helpless, and its then Jesus tells them, you do something! “You feed them”.  Jesus made an unreasonable request.  When He does this, it is then that you must trust Him to break the human limitations.  The responsibility shifts to the Holy Spirit to provide the power, to break the limitations off your life that is needed to fulfill the request.

What God demands; He supplies.

The moment Jesus says to you, “Give them something to eat”, you’ll discover what you really believe. Will you look to Him or will you look to yourself?  We’re quick to see what we can’t do and quick to talk about what we don’t have. The disciples saw the crowds and realized their inadequacy. Somehow, they lost sight of the fact that the Son of God was standing right there with them and God is with you right now as well.

What Do You Have?

Everybody has something!  Jesus says in Mark 6:38 – “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.”  Miracles always begin with the recognition of what you have. You can’t multiply what you have not recognized.  All too often we conclude that we don’t have anything.  John’s account of this miracle tells us that it was Andrew who found the young boy with the five loaves and two fish and brought him to Jesus. We should not miss the lesson here: Don’t ever despise the day of small things. Just because something is small or seemingly insignificant doesn’t mean God can’t use it.

It’s also interesting that they did not count the women and the children, yet it was a little boy who had the loaves and fish that Jesus used to feed thousands.  The one who was not counted had the miracle.  Isn’t it amazing that God uses people that other people don’t count?  They were so busy counting what they thought was significant that they overlooked the one who God had counted.  God will always use what you hadn’t counted on Him using for your miracle.

God Brings Order Out Of Chaos

He commanded these thousands of people to sit in groups of fifty.  Trying to feed thousands may seem impossible, but you can feed fifty people.  Jesus brought this to a manageable number.  This took some time.  You can’t allow your need to rush the order that God is establishing in your life.  Sometimes you must be restructured and placed in order to get you in position to receive what God has for you. You need a structure that can sustain what God wants to give you.  Remember the woman in  2 Kings 4 had to borrow many vessels before the miracle of the oil began to flow.  These vessels brought structure and order that allowed the miracle.

Be Thankful

Mark 6:41  And when He had taken the five loaves and the two fish, He looked up to heaven, blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to His disciples to set before them; and the two fish He divided among them all. Jesus now blesses what is not enough.  Until you are thankful for what is not enough, then you are not in a position for multiplication.  

The God of More Than Enough

He could have stopped when everybody had enough to eat, the real miracle is not in what they ate, but in what was left over.  God is smart enough to be precise, but He wanted them to have an overflow, an abundance, more than enough. Don’t let people tell you that God will give you just enough, just what you need.  His Name is (EL-Shadi) which means the God of more than enough. Why would a God who names means more than enough, give you just enough or not enough?  David didn’t say “my cup is full”, but my cup runneth over.  Why would God pour more than the cup could hold?  Because God is not limited by your capacity to receive.  He wants your children and your children’s children to have blessings.  They gathered up the fragments and there were 12 baskets full.  Why gather up the fragments?  Remember, this was a stressful test for the disciples.  God never intended you to go thru something and get nothing out of it. God knows you are going through a stressful time; you are about to have your baskets filled!

 Stressful Situations

I want to sum up the lessons out of this wonderful miracle:

Lesson #1: The fact that something is impossible is no excuse for not trying to do it. All too often we conclude that something can’t be done so we don’t bother trying to do it. If Moses had taken that attitude, the Jews would still be in Egypt. If Joshua had felt that way, the walls of Jericho would still be standing. If David had adopted that opinion, Goliath would still be terrorizing the Israelites. You never know in advance what God may do so don’t rule out the possibility of a miracle coming your way.

Lesson #2: God asks us to do the impossible and then he gives whatever we need to obey his command.  Jesus often told people to do impossible things. To a lame man He said, “Rise, pick up your bed, and walk.” To a dead man, He cried out, “Lazarus, come forth.” There is a sense in which every command of God is impossible for us to obey. We always lack what we need to obey God’s commands. But God is faithful to give us whatever we need when we ask him. What God demands, he supplies. He “bids us fly and gives us wings.”

Lesson #3: When we offer our meager resources to God, we discover that the impossible isn’t.