Bread and Fish

In Matthew 15, a group of followers has surrounded Jesus in order to receive healing and wisdom, and end up hanging out with Him for 3 days. (Some of ya'll are falling asleep in your hour long church service. You better be thankful your pastor isn't the Son of Man!) In the midst of it all, Jesus recognizes that these people haven't taken time to eat because they've been so fixated on Him, so He looks to the disciples for help. The disciples are able to provide 7 loaves of bread and a few fish. If I'm a disciple, I'm about to tell the crowd they better go fishing while I sneak up into the forest and eat some bread! Jesus takes the food though, blesses it, and has the disciples pass it out to the crowds.

Verse 38 says "the number of those who ate was four thousand men, besides women and children." At first, maybe you're thinking they got like a little pinch, but the previous verse says that after all ate and were satisfied, the disciples collected seven basketfuls of leftovers!

This is such a great reminder that when we seek God first - that means first priority - in this case, before eating. In our case, it could mean before  going to work, before eating dinner, before going on a road trip, before spending that money, before buying that house, before taking that job, before hiring that employee, before dropping your child off at school. When we put God first, He's going to give us everything that we need. In this case, even an overflow! So much, that everyone was filled and there was more left over.

But what if you wanted a steak dinner? Well... you got fish and bread! Tacos? Nope... fish and bread. A salad? Nah... fish and bread.

God's desire is to be our Father and to provide for our needs because of the love that He has for us. That doesn't mean that He's going to fulfill our every want. If a two year old wants ice cream for every meal, do you give them ice cream for every meal? I hope not! Why not? You have wisdom and understanding about nutrients and food types that your two year old does not understand. You want to give them something to satisfy their hunger, but a lot of the time you're going to be fulfilling needs and not wants. That's the same thing that God will do in your life. The fun part is, as that two year old gets older and wiser, their wants will hopefully line up more with their needs. The same thing happens to us in our relationship with God. The more we seek Him out by reading His Word and speaking with Him, the more wisdom we'll gain into what our needs are versus what our wants are. Some of our wants may even disappear as we realize they would lead us away from our needs.

I may still want ice cream for dinner tonight and breakfast tomorrow, but I'm trying to be able to keep up with my kids in 20 years, so bring on the veggies, the water, and the nutritional cereal with little added sugar. I'll dream about frosted flakes as it goes down!