Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“The disciples said to him, ‘Where are we to get enough bread in the desert to feed so great a crowd?’”
NL Daily Devotion for Saturday, March 4, 2023
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
Are you nuts, Jesus? his disciples seem to say. If I’m honest, I say that kind of thing to God all the time. I live an incredibly privileged life—let me be clear about that—but it’s also quite challenging. And frankly, I worry about how I’m going to support myself and my two adult special needs children financially, emotionally, and physically. I find myself in that crowd who has been following Jesus—exhausted, hungry, lacking—and I know that Jesus has compassion for me. He wants me to be filled, to have everything it is that I need. And I look at him and I say, “Where am I going to get enough fill-in-the-blank to meet this new need?”
Then Jesus does this thing. You know, that thing that he does when he makes the seemingly impossible happen? He asks me, “What have you got?” and I give him a list of my available resources and he says, “It’ll be enough.” And somehow—and I kid you not, this happens over and over and over again—it is enough. Sometimes it requires me to ask for help (and, surprise! I get it). Sometimes it requires me to take some other indicated action. But mostly it requires trust, which I somehow manage to muster…most of the time. And then I get out of the way and let God work and then thank God over and over for whatever comes of it.
When has God shown up for me in a seemingly miraculous way?
