39. The faith of a little boy

One day Jesus was teaching a huge crowd. They were following Him wherever He went especially because they saw His miracles as He healed the sick. Now it was getting late and the disciples suggested that Jesus send the people away in order to get food in the local villages, because there was nothing to eat in the deserted place. But Jesus suggested that they feed them. In unbelief they stared at Him.

"It would take a small fortune to feed them!" Philip replied. John 6:7

But then Andrew stepped forward with a little boy. He had five barley loaves and two fishes and he was prepared to share it with them all. Now you all know how Jesus took these five loaves and two fishes and multiplied it and fed five thousand men with it, not even including the women and children!

But for now I would like to return to the faith that this little boy had. We don't know his name or anything about him, but he had mountain moving faith. Imagine you were him. Here you are, far away from any village, far away from food. But despite that you had planned ahead and brought food along to sustain yourself in order to stay close to Jesus. And not only that, you worked cleverly with your food, and didn't indulge in it, you planned your meals to have enough left over to be able to follow Jesus. And now here the masses around you run into a food crises. They didn't plan as well as you did, they maybe even gobbled up all their food at the start of the day and didn't have any left like you did. What would you have done when the disciples came around asking for food? Would you have shared? After all you had planned and had been conscientious with your food and they weren't. They deserved to go hungry.

The boy could have hid the food and pretended that he didn't have any and ate in secret. He could have ignored the disciples' plea, reasoning to himself that he was in the right, but he didn't. No, he had faith in Jesus. He had faith that Jesus would put his food to good use and that he will not go hungry. He had more faith than the disciples had that followed Jesus every day. They didn't think that Jesus would be able to provide like this little boy did.  And even worse it would seem that they also didn't have the compassion on the crowd like the boy did. He was prepared to share what he had with all these people. He didn't want to see them grow faint from hunger.

He is a hero in my eyes. As I said before we don't know who he was, but this miracle is mentioned in all four gospels indicating its significance. We can learn a lot from him. We can learn to share what we have, and look to Jesus with mountain moving faith that He will provide all we need whilst providing in the needs of others as well.

Lord Jesus, help us to have mountain moving faith like this boy did. Help us to look up to You and believe that You will look after us, even as we share what we have. In Jesus' Name. Amen

1 comment for “39. The faith of a little boy”

  1. Gravatar of LouinaLouina
    Posted Wednesday, 18 April 2012 at 12:28:15 PM

    Thank you Ilze, just what I needed to be reminded of.

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