Jesus said to them, "They need not go away; you give them something to eat."
This is taken from the story of the feeding of the five thousand. Here are the apostle's confronted with human need on a pretty big scale, and no visible means to meet it (they want to send the crowd away to provide for themselves) and that's what Jesus says. As I reflect on that sentence in preparation to pray "Give us today our daily bread", I usually find myself focussing on a couple of things either together or singly. One thing is that there is the implicit offer to provide through them. In other words, the apostles are being told that they can meet this need because God wants it to be met through their cooperation. So one line of thought for me is that God will provide for me/us to do things that seem out of our means at the moment. I rather suspect that this is what lies behind Paul's affirmation in 2 Corinthians 9 that God will provide for us to be generous.
This prompts some reflection on what we already have and how it is to be employed. The assumption that it is for us is one that we need to be prepared to challenge, as with the lad who had the loaves and fishes. Another line of thought then, is that we might be the vehicles of provision for others, either in terms of offering what we already have or in anticipating gaining more to give away. In fact it may be that we will find our provision in meeting the needs of others. The ox is indeed not muzzled as it treads the threshing floor.
This prompts me to think also of the will of God. Knowing that provision will be there if the will of God is served makes me want to pray also that we may know God's will, that we will live by discernment of God's guidance. But that is a matter for a later reflection on a following passage, but it is well to note the link.
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Crosswalk.com - Matthew 14:16: On Del.icio.us: Prayer_beads, paternoster, Praying_the_Pattern, reflection, rosary
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