Trust is
required of us on many levels. It’s
required on the level of receiving all the spiritual, emotional and
psychological strength we need to not only survive each day but also to thrive
in many ways. Trust is also required on
the level of God providing for our basic day-to-day needs such as food, shelter
and clothing. For most people, these
areas of trust aren’t difficult, but for others it requires a tremendous amount
of surrender.
There’s a Gospel
situation that provides a context in which Jesus was able to test the trust of
His disciples. At first, they failed the
test by panicking and asking Jesus to send the crowds away to obtain food, but
in the end they were awe-struck as they saw the providence of God at work. In the end, Jesus multiplied five loaves of
bread and two fish so as to feed over five thousand [Mark 6:34-44].
First of
all, this Gospel doesn’t tell us that we can be irresponsible in providing for
our own needs and simply trust that Jesus will miraculously provide for us all
the time. It’s not about abandoning our
own duty to work and provide for ourselves and our families.
What this
Gospel is about is trust. In this
context, the followers of Jesus were being drawn to put their eyes on our Lord
and be with Him. They were being drawn,
spiritually, to abandon all cares in life in that moment so that they could be
fed spiritually. They were being invited
into an act of faith, and it’s clear that the crowds were, indeed, trusting in
this interior invitation. It’s clear by
the fact that they were still with Him despite their evident physical hunger.
One key
message, therefore, is that God sometimes calls us to trust Him in ways that don’t
seem to be immediately practical and logical.
The practical thing to do would have been to leave and acquire food for
themselves. But the supernatural call of
grace, at that moment, told this group of over five thousand that they should
remain with Jesus and trust that all would work out. And that’s what they did, and it did work
out.
God sometimes
calls us to follow Him in ways that don’t immediately make sense. We shouldn’t be surprised if we sense, at
times, God calling us to listen more intently to His promise of providence than
our own natural deduction of human logic.
God’s ways are far above our ways [Isaiah 55:9]. Sometimes His call is radical, and when we’re
deeply convicted in faith that God is calling us to trust Him, then we must do
it. Trust Him in all things and He will
always provide for us [Proverbs 3:5-6].
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