October 14, 2025

GOD’S WORD FOR TODAY:

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a [certain] future.’“

(Jeremiah 29.11)

TODAY’S REFLECTION ON GOD’S WORD:

It is important to know that God just doesn’t give any future. God gives a certain future. God is not random. God is not accidental. God is intentional in His plan, design and hope for your life. God is the “good” Father. God is the best at being THE “good” Father. Jesus said to the fathers on the hillside above Capernaum who had gathered with their families to hear the words of the Master, “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask Him! So, in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 7.9-12) I wonder if this teaching couldn’t have happened with the same crowd as we are introduced to in “The Feeding of the 5000.” Maybe it is just the storyteller in me that sees this, but how poignant is the teaching mentioned above in light of the revelatory feeding of over 20,000 people with just a family’s lunch of loaves and fish. In the story I tell, driven by scripture itself, a boy offers up the loaves and fishes. He has heard the conversation between the disciples and Jesus concerning the crowd and their own grumbling stomachs. In the midst of all the teachings Jesus offered that day, the disciples still demonstrated their immaturity in the flesh and in the spirit. They were thinking of themselves and their own hunger. I wonder when they truly hungered and thirsted for righteousness as much as they hungered and thirsted for sustenance of the body? In their own hunger, they took inventory of what they had among them to fill their hunger. I don’t know about you, but when I am fully engaged in an activity, the last thing I consider is my hunger…at least, that is, until the activity has come to an end or there is a long enough pause to let my mind wander. Could this mean then, in my story, that the disciples had stopped listening to Jesus and His teaching and listened more to their own needs? Perhaps. Regardless, they acted as advocates for the crowd and put their own need for food onto the crowd assuming, for their own sake, they must be hungry, too. It is called “transferal.” (Here I go again seeing things in words that others do not see. The prefix “trans” means across, beyond or through. We can see the word “feral” by removing the prefix and think of something that is wild and undomesticated. The disciples practiced the psychological directive of relating to their “wild” nature and believed everyone else was the same in terms of hunger. What they didn’t transfer was the same reality to meet the need. They had food stores for themselves insufficient to feed 20,000. They apparently did not consider that those in attendance were equally prepared for the day’s event to journey to hear the Master speak and act.) We know that one family was prepared. The boy became an empathetic listener of the disciples’ plight. He asked his dad if they could sacrifice their meal for the sake of the disciples who complained they didn’t have enough. The enough was considered in terms of the disciples’ needs for themselves. The boy, hearing the words of Jesus, was moved to sacrifice. He knew his father would not deny him this good gift. He may not have liked it, but he would not refuse it. What the boy did next would confuse the disciples. They took the gift as a sign of less, but Jesus saw it as a sign of more. The disciples were looking for ways to dismiss the crowd. Jesus was looking for ways to empower the crowd. The disciples were not practicing the responsibility of being “good” fathers, and we know Peter was a father. Jesus’ words then spoke to the very heart of the matter. While He most certainly wanted the people to know of His Father’s love in mercy, grace, righteousness and provision, He was committed to bringing the level of the disciples’ awareness to its apex. This “sermon” on the mount was to be one of many “mountaintop” experiences. What the disciples meant for evil, serving their own need to be away from the responsibility of the crowd, Jesus used for “good.” He took the gift of faith from the boy and his family. He overlooked the meager stores of the disciples, meager in light of the challenge spread out before them. He submitted the gift to the true Giver, Yahweh Elohim, and allowed its testimony to speak the truth which became apparent to the disciples afterward. The people did not come empty-handed to Jesus. They came as prepared as they could be in the hope of not staying the same as they were but to become more than they were. Did the disciples share the same intention?

You see, mighty ones of God, God has a certain future in mind for each of us. It is not about predestination and double-predestination (systems that serve only to validate a human perspective of who is more right than others when it comes to God and faith). God does not will the death of anyone. God created all of life and the means by which life comes into being. God also wants that life to be blessed to the full and dwell forever with Him “in spirit and in truth.” He does not have a number in mind for those who will refuse His saving grace, abiding mercy and abundant love. He wants all of His people to be saved from the tragedy and terror of sin. He is a realist, however, and knows that sin prevails in the lives of many even when they know the truth and refuse it. He is also, then, a God of justice and will sorrowfully but completely mete out that justice. His will shall be done on earth as it is in Heaven which includes “under the earth” as well. Mighty ones, be ready to receive and to share the “good” gift which our Father has to offer. He hears our needs and struggle for survival just as the boy heard the disciples’ on that mountainside above Capernaum. He offers to us what He has, His Son Jesus, as fishes and loaves believing it is enough for us all. Will we believe it?

TODAY’S PRAYER IN RESPONSE TO GOD’S WORD:

Father, in these days we are finding the need to believe even more than ever before. We all have known trouble, some in greater ways than others, but You are offering us the assurance that we will not be consumed by it forever. Regardless of the “time” we are in and the “time” we have been given, we ask for Your Holy Spirit which Jesus asked You to share with us, to lead and guide and direct us in the paths we should go. Teach us what we still need to learn. Empower us to put that learning into action. Bless our actions not as a works righteousness but as righteous works of faith, hope and love in Jesus’ name. AMEN.