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.

Knowing How It Works

I recently read an article about Jensen Huang, the founder and CEO of Nvidia, the company that makes the computer chips for AI, artificial intelligence.  Huang and a reporter were in a room filled with balls of various sizes and colors.  A robot, functioning with artificial intelligence, was moving through the room, selecting only the balls that were colored red and putting them into a basket. The reporter watched this awhile and then turned to Huang and said, "This makes me nervous! Doesn't this make you nervous!"  Huang laughed and said, "No! It doesn't make me nervous at all! I know how it works!"

Mark, in his gospel, recounts the story of Jesus calming the storm on the sea of Galilee. (Mark 4: 35-41).  The disciples put out in a boat on the Galilee water.  Jesus goes to sleep in the stern of the boat.  Mark states, "There were also other boats with him." (v.37).  The only reason that Mark can have for making this statement is that he was in one of the other boats.  This is an eye- witness account.  "A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.  Jesus was in the stern sleeping on a cushion.  The disciples woke him and said to him, 'Teacher, don't you care if we drown!"  He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!"  Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid?  Do you still have no faith?"

They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this?  Even the wind and waves obey him!"

In this scene, we see the disciples terrified, scared out of their wits.  By contrast, Jesus is completely calm, even annoyed a bit at having been awakened.  They are beside themselves with terror; he is completely calm.  The fierce and sudden storm doesn't bother him at all.  Why?

Because he knows how it works.  "Be still," he says.  And it's still.  He knows how it works.

Dallas Willard, a former philosophy professor at the USC Dept. of Philosophy, calls Jesus, "the smartest man who ever lived!" (The Divine Conspiracy).  He attributes Christ's miraculous works

to not so much "hocus-pocus" as to the fact that he, Jesus, understands how nature works in ways that we have yet to discover.  It is a radical idea but as you read his book, you get the distinct impression that he is on to something, something that maybe most of us have missed.

The Creator of Nature, knows Nature and knows how it works.  That makes sense.

It might be worthwhile to remember that when life terrifies us, to call on Him to help us.  After all,  He knows how it works.

Doubt

Doubt is an attitude that is common to all of us.  We all doubt.  It is not something that we are born with.  We are not "born skeptics."  Doubt is something that we develop in life.  We develop it because we learn that life often presents us with un-truths, or lies.  Our political leaders are often "fact-checked," shown to be in error in what they are telling us, and yet persist in "un-truths." Doubt then becomes a protective mechanism for us.  We learn that there is a certain degree of wisdom in doubting;  skepticism is healthy to a certain degree.

Sometimes we even doubt when the preponderance of evidence to the contrary, is overwhelming. Look at this passage from Matthew 11.  "After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee.  When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples to ask, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?"  (Math 11: 2)  This is a remarkable degree of doubt on John's part.  Afterall, he was Christ's first cousin and was a mere 6 months older than Jesus (Luke 1).  Further, he had himself baptised Jesus! (Mark 1).  And yet he was doubting at this point that Jesus was indeed the Christ, the one of whom he himself had declared, "Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world! " (John 1:29).  But here he had his doubts.  As we all do.

How did Christ respond to this?  By providing overwhelming evidence that testified to who he was. "Go back and report to John what you hear and see:  The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the good news is preached to the poor."  (Math 11: 4-6).  Tangible evidence; solid evidence; unimpeachable evidence.  Then Christ says, "Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me."  He is simply saying, "Overcome your doubts. Don't give up believing in me.  I am who I am.  Keep your eyes on me and I will get you home.  Stop doubting and believe."

Lord, I believe.  Help me overcome my unbelief.  (Mark 9:24)