We have but a few real guaranties in life. When we buy anything we all look for the manufacturer’s warranty. We make sure we are familiar with its parameters so we don't void it. Some of the guaranties we get in this world seem to be somewhat bleak; death (10 out of 10 people die), taxes, poor people, politicians will lie. Some are very encouraging; children being born, good friends, favorite meal, favorite song, a smile. What makes us really satisfied when we think about it?
In one of my weekly Bible lesson prep days I was reading the story in Luke 9:10-17. It's a familiar story, is the feeding of the five thousand. At first glance when you read the story you go "Oh Wow!" "What an amazing miracle!" When you dig into it, in a more scholarly manner you find out things that make it even more amazing. The fact that scholars believe that not mentioned is the fact that the 5K men may have had women and children with them. This tidbit of information makes it even more amazing because it implies that at least 13-15 thousand people were fed that day. Just try to wrap your mind around that; 13-15K people fed in one day from five loafs of bread and two fishes. If you do not stop there you will start to see the little things in the story.
Jesus was trying to take his disciples aside to give them some time to recover from preaching to other towns right before this episode. In the midst of their time-out with Jesus people show up and Jesus has compassion for them and starts healing and preaching to them. Noticed the disciples attitude when it starts go down. They showed concern for the people but it totally escaped their minds that they had the solution to the hunger problem. Their concern was; "look at all these people, there is no way we can house, let alone, feed them all. Let's ask Jesus to send them away until tomorrow, they will listen to Him he's, well Jesus after all." So the disciples go to Jesus and instead of asking what to do, they already have a plan for what Jesus should do. Does that sound familiar to you? They had good intentions but misguided plans. We have a tendency to try to give God a plan that he can follow for our lives don't we? Instead of asking Jesus; what should we do?
Jesus has the best response of all time; "You feed them!" OH Snap! No He didn't! Then their focus got really narrow; "But all we have are these two fish and five loafs!" Their focus was on want they didn't have, enough to feed 5K, it should have been; let's start with what we have and see how it goes. Jesus then intervenes and the miracle takes place. Scripture uses the Greek word chortazō (khor-tad'-zo) which denotes the sense of filled to satisfaction to describe how everyone felt after they have all eaten. Completely filled and in need of nothing more. If we surrender to God's involvement everyone who surrenders is satisfied. Then and only then will your satisfaction be guarantied
