When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” – John 6:5-9
Sometimes God asks us a question that seems impossible to answer, or He gives us a task that’s impossible to fulfill, and it’s honestly to see what we do with the question.
Where on earth would the disciples get enough money, much less enough food, to feed a crowd with 5,000 men? Keep in mind, if we guess that each man had a woman and/or a child with him, that’s between 10,000-15,000 people. And here’s Jesus, not asking HOW they were going to buy bread, but *where,* as though the how was already a given.
Look at Philip, thinking as most of us would. He’s like, “Um, probably nowhere, Lord, unless we’re going to wash dishes for a long time.” And he wasn’t wrong. Only he WAS wrong.
Now let’s look at Andrew. Do you honestly think his inner monologue was much different than Philip’s answer? More than likely not. But instead of answering with a negative response, he looked around and maybe even half-heartedly answered that there was a kid with a tiny lunch his mom had packed.
Faith the size of a mustard seed. Not only that, I believe it’s the power of not shutting down God’s potential with a negative answer. And from there Jesus goes on to do a large-scale miracle.
How many times is there a question in our lives that seems impossible to answer? When it’s just too big and it’s hard to understand and there seems to be no plausible way that it could come out right for the good guys?
Look for that sack lunch. Remember Jesus can answer that impossible question and have 12 baskets left over, and he’s proven he’ll do it.
He doesn’t ask us to do the miracle, He just asks us to provide the faith . ❤️
