“And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away. And his disciples answered him, How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place? (Mark 8:3-4)
I never really liked what the old adage, “if there is a will, there is a way” implied. If you think about it intently, it just leads people to place false hope in an impossible situation. Then as we all know too well, as we have all been disappointed before in life, it doesn’t go the way we thought despite what we will. So when Jesus says to his disciples, “I worry about these people, we need to feed them knowing quite well that there is nothing they have by which they can feed the people, my heart flutters because I know what’s coming– the inability to deliver on your desire and hope. Verse 4 reiterates that thought because the disciples know its an impossible situation. You and I have all been in this situation. In fact, you can liken the situation to being stuck at the airport during a blizzard with the last plane going to your destination not being cancelled… and then it is cancelled (if you’re at Hartsfield Airport, you resign yourself to having your flight canceled just by being there, but that’s another story altogether). I think the disciple were crushed into hopelessness before Jesus even told them His will.
The story, as you may know ends with, Jesus breaking bread and feeding them all with more than enough leftovers to feed a very hungry army. I’m not going to tell you that our God is the God of the impossible. We all know that. He took the impossible situation and made it look like an everyday occurrence. What I am going to tell you is that because our God is the God of the impossible, He will routinely and push us into situations, call us from out of the blue to engage ourselves in the impossible tasks of life. He does not want us to shy away from a feat too big. He does not want us to be discouraged by what all reason tells us. He wants us to have reasonable doubt in the impossibilities of life and see what happens.
If you’re in an impossible spot right now and the thorns of life are draining you out, then know that God wants you to be right there. Not because He’s sadistic, but because He wants us to see that His willingness to reach into the impossible is to show you that He will feed when there is nothing but desolation. God’s will is the way. we need to receive it and jump in head first.
Comments are closed