What do you have?

⁴His disciples answered, "But where in this remote place can anyone get enough bread to feed them?" ⁵"How many loaves do you have?" Jesus asked. "Seven," they replied.

How many loaves do you have? What a great question. In reading this story in Mark I was caught by my own questions. Why did the disciples look at what they didn't have.. they asked... where can anyone get enough bread to feed them? Why do we do the same thing? We ask... Why don't I have more volunteers to serve, Why don't I have the money to get XYZ, Why don't I have one more day for production.

Maybe instead of asking why don't we....  we should ask what do I have? 

Every journey starts somewhere. You usually don't get in your car and just drive. You have a starting point and a destination. And you can't start that journey until you know where your at.
Our perceived "lack of" will always keep our eyes on the problem and off of the solution, but we are never done until we have looked at each problem from every angle. Until we have looked at where we are and where we need to go.  Until we look at available supplies (solutions) and not unavailable ones
(problems). Miracles will occur when outcomes are not humanly possible!

Christ knew how many loaves of bread there were. And it didn't change what he did next. so in times of want maybe we should ask ourselves. What do I have? Do I expect a miracle from God?, and am I focusing on problems or solutions?

Thanks to Alan Nelson and his cool  book Coached by Jesus for the great questions and thoughts!

Comments

[Sound Doctrine]

Thanks for this post. It has generated some thinking on my part to hear what God has been trying to tell me.

[Dan Vukmirovich]

Yeah, this reminds of Leadership Summit this year when Moses was the example. Moses said, (Exodus 4) "What if they don't believe me?" (meaning basically "WAH!") and God said "What is that in your hand?" God used the ordinary staff in Moses' had to make an extraordinary point. Also, the fact whenever Moses picked up the staff it was lifeless but when he layed it down (before the Lord) it came to life! What do we have that we can lay down before the Lord that He might bring to life? God's cool like that.