In those days, the multitude being very great and having nothing to eat, Jesus called His disciples [to Him] and said to them, 2 “I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now continued with Me three days and have nothing to eat. 3 “And if I send them away hungry to their own houses, they will faint on the way; for some of them have come from afar.” 4 Then His disciples answered Him, “How can one satisfy these people with bread here in the wilderness?” 5 He asked them, “How many loaves do you have?” And they said, “Seven.” 6 So He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. And He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, broke [them] and gave [them] to His disciples to set before [them]; and they set [them] before the multitude. 7 They also had a few small fish; and having blessed them, He said to set them also before [them]. 8 So they ate and were filled, and they took up seven large baskets of leftover fragments. 9 Now those who had eaten were about four thousand. And He sent them away, 10 immediately got into the boat with His disciples, and came to the region of Dalmanutha.

– Mark 8:1-10 (NKJV)

I heard a story of a new preacher who had come to a church and he preached his first message on John 3:16 and everyone thought he did a fine job presenting the message. When the congregation came back the next week, they were puzzled to see the preacher preach the same sermon he had the week before. Some thought that maybe it had slipped his mind, others thought that perhaps he was young and he only had one good sermon and so they’d give him time to bring something different the next week. Sure enough after preaching the same sermon for three weeks in a row, one of the deacon’s pulled the pastor to the side and asked him why he hadn’t brought a “new” message. The pastor replied, “I’ve been wondering the same thing. I get up there and I preach my guts out but as I talk with people in the community through the week I realize that our church folks haven’t gotten the message and so I’ve committed to preaching it until it takes! I’m not hear just to tell you what the bible says, I’m calling you to really trust Jesus!”

I laughed when I heard that story, but it also stung a little. There are times in our life where God reveals his faithfulness to us through our trials, we seemingly grow by leaps and bounds, but then when we face a similar trial down the road, we are back at square one. (Like when Abraham lied about Sarah and said she was just his sister in both Genesis 12 and 20.) That is where we find the disciples again today. Jesus does another miracle of feeding a large crowd in the wilderness but the disciples seem to come up short on having learned their lesson from the last time and they are puzzled about where to get the bread to feed so many.

grateful that Jesus took his time to teach and reteach the disciples even through some hard lessons like this and I’m grateful that he takes time to reteach us as well. I think it’s also worth noting how many people were “bought-in” to the message that Jesus was sharing. They were willing to go into the wilderness and fast for the sake of seeing Jesus and hearing his word. It’s also worth noting that Jesus provided for those who were so desperately and persistently seeking him (again similar to how God provided manna when the nation of Israel was wandering in the Desert).

Father, We love you and want to grow in knowledge of you and your word. We are grateful for your patience with us to teach us how to trust you and come to you in faith. Thankyou that when we are weak, you are strong. We are grateful for the way you call us to follow you and where you guide, you provide. Please grow our faith. give us grace to trust you in the easy times and in the hard. Please be glorified in all of our lives. We humbly ask that you guide us in your will and direction. In Jesus Name, Amen.