Late in the afternoon
the twelve disciples came to him and said, “Send the crowds away to the nearby
villages and farms, so they can find food and lodging for the night. There is
nothing to eat here in this remote place.”
But Jesus
said, “You feed them.”
“But we have only
five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered. “Or are you expecting us to
go and buy enough food for this whole crowd?”
For there were about 5,000 men there.
Jesus replied, “Tell them to sit down in groups of about fifty each.” So the people all sat
down. 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 and fish to the
disciples so they could distribute it to the people. They all ate as much as
they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of
leftovers! Luke 9:12-17
When I was young, I found myself asking a lot of dumb
questions. At times, it led to some
level of embarrassment, but other times, it made a difference in someone’s
life. Once before my 10th
birthday, I asked my mom a simple dumb question, “Why do you smoke? Isn’t that bad for you?” My mother would soon thereafter stop smoking
altogether, and I have not seen her smoke over the past forty years. My wife and I were arguing with each other in
the very young days of our marriage. It
got to be so loud once that our son came in crying asking why we were yelling
at each other. I promised to never yell
at her mother like that, and have not since to this day. Sometimes, a simple dumb question can lead to
powerful change.
God will sometimes wait for us to ask him the question so
that He can show us something powerful and amazing. I have heard many times the story of Jesus
feeding the five thousand people with the loaves of bread and two fish. However, I realized reading it today how the
amazing feat did not occur until the disciples had ‘asked a dumb
question.’ I laughed because you can hear
the incredulous doubt in the disciples’ voices as they said, “Or are you
expecting us to go and buy enough food for this whole crowd?” It’s like when I ‘brilliantly’ ask my wife
after work looking at the counter and seeing nothing thawed out for dinner, “So
what are we going to eat for dinner, honey?”
Of course, I do not notice dinner is already on the stove! Ok, back to the story! So they asked Jesus this question. These were not the Pharisees who have been
looking to trip up Jesus since He started preaching the Good News gospel or the
Gentiles who had no idea who Jesus was.
These were the disciples who were as close to Jesus as they come, and
they had seen Him do all these miraculous things. Yet, they ask the dumb question anyway! So Jesus instructed them, and it said, “He kept giving the bread and fish
to the disciples.” It was as if Jesus was
looking at them with a confident all-knowing smile saying, “Now watch
this!” He of course fed the crowd not
only until they were full but also where there was “twelve baskets of leftovers!”
God is waiting for us to reach out to Him and ask what it is
we need from Him because He is the great provider! How often do we look at our situation going
to God saying, “I can’t do this?” We
need to stop looking at what we cannot do and focus on what God can do because
frankly that is what He expects from us; total dependency! Jesus said, “For the
Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children.”
(Matthew 19:14b) Jesus said this because
He understood children are dependent on their fathers just as we should be on
our Heavenly Father. What is it that you
need to ask of God today? What seemingly
audacious dream or problem can you take to God?
My prayer is that we can all laugh at our big situations knowing God is
the answer to our ‘dumb question.’ Amen.
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