Miracle Food

          There have been times in my life when I thought I was really hungry and had nothing to eat. Then there was Aunt Edna who said to me that if you have a jar of mustard and a spoonful of sugar, you can make a snack. I used it many times after that. It was simply a spoon full of mustard on two slices of bread sprinkled with sugar. While it may sound inedible to some, it was good at the time. In school, about 2:30 in the afternoon, my stomach would begin its announcing that it was hungry and I was known to eat just a tad bit of glue. Even the crayons smelled good about that time of day. Mark 6:42-44 says, “ And they all ate and were satisfied. And they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. And those who ate the loaves were five thousand men.”

        The account mentioned shows that there were a considerable amount of people and it was time for lunch and nothing to be found. The Lord Jesus Christ knew full well what He was going to do but He did question the disciples and none of them had an answer as to how they were going to provide food for such a large group of people. The amount of 5,000 people can also equate to about 5,000 women plus the amount of children present. It could have been a group of over 10,000 to 13,000 people God then provided the food which was not great thing for God. He had done it for 40 years while about 1.3 million people roamed the desert in the wilderness providing manna every day except on the Sabbath. I often wonder what the bread and the fish tasted like on that day when the Lord Jesus Christ fed them all. It must have been good and there is no record of anyone complaining about what they got to eat that day. When God prepared the lunch that day, it was perfectly baked with perfect ingredients and the fish were just about as perfect as fish can get. They all ate until they were full and then there was the clean up afterwards when twelve baskets of fragments were gathered up afterwards. There is no further information on what they did with the twelve baskets. Many like to think that there was a basket for each of the twelve disciples that were with Him that day but no indication that it was specifically for them. As usual, the lesson for us is that what God does is always the best. It was like the water to wine when the end result was the “best” wine. This is the first opportunity for them to taste bread and fish that were “out of this world.” I sometimes would purchase bread each day in Spain that was fresh from the oven. I would usually break off a piece before I got home because it just smelled so good. Whatever God does for us is always going to be the best no matter what it is. We usually end up getting the best from God when we run out of our own capability to get what we need by ourselves. In the end, God provides just as He did with the Red Sea, the manna, the water from the rock, the feeding of the 5,000 and the feeding of the 4,000. When God provides, you can be assured that it is going to be the best and far better than you could ever have thought about. Praise God today for all of the wonderful blessings that He has provided and will keep on providing in each and every person's life.