A Chance To Participate

I've been reading through the book of Matthew.  Today I read the well known passage about Christ feeding the 5000 (Matthew 14: 15-21).  It's a remarkable story.  Christ feeds more than 5000 people all totaled with five loaves of bread and two small fish..  It's an amazing miracle of provision, of His ability to provide.  But that is not the way the story initiates.

Seeing the very large crowds of people, the disciples, no doubt tired from a long day, come to Christ and ask him to send the people away so that they can go into the adjacent villages and get food for themselves to eat.  The passage says, "This is a remote place."  But Christ says to the disciples a very surprising thing: "You give them something to eat."  They must have looked at Him in complete disbelief.  They must have been thinking, "He's been in the sun too long!  We need to get Him into the shade.  He's lost it!"  

But Christ knew what He was saying.  He already knew what He was going to do and how He was going to do it.  He was simply offering them, the disciples, a chance to participate in the miracle that He would perform.

A chance to participate.  I wonder how many times that has been offered to me.  I wonder how many times I have encountered seemingly impossible odds and seemingly impossible situations, overwhelming circumstances and numbers of people, and responded, "Nothing I can do here!"

And I missed hearing Him say, "You give them something."

"Give them your time, your understanding, your patience, your empathy, your resources.  You give them something."  He already knows how He will handle the problem.  He is just offering me a chance to participate in something that He will do for people that will be ground-breaking.

I will try to remember this.  The next time that I encounter a situation involving a large number of people, and I think to myself, "I can't even make a dent in this problem," I will listen for the voice that says, "You give them something."  And I will look for my chance to participate.