Last weekend, I had a chance to speak at MLCF and had a great time worshipping with the Lifespring family in Mississauga. I spoke on John 6:1-13, which is a passage I’ve spoken on before but I think has special significance for our theme of Patient Endurance this year. The theme of Patient Endurance seems to already be resonating with many people that I’ve spoken to, even though we’re only eight weeks in to the year. Maybe you’ve had an experience over the past couple of weeks that has required patient endurance too. If so, hopefully the idea of “listen and pray” is meaningful for you.
John 6:1-13 is about the miracle of the five loaves and two fish, a Bible story that many of you would be familiar with. The outline of the story is simple: Jesus is preaching one day in Galilee, and it starts getting late. There is not enough money or food to feed the 5000 people that had gathered to hear Jesus. All they could find were five loaves and two fish that a young person had. Jesus blesses the food and starts to distribute it, and they end up with twelve baskets of bread left over.
I think one lesson we can draw from the story is about the importance of listening to God. Verse 5-6 says,
“Jesus looked up and saw the large crowd coming toward him. He asked Philip, ‘Where will we buy food to feed these people?’ Jesus said this to test him, for he already knew what he was going to do.”
Before the miracle of Jesus multiplying the food, he already knew what he was about to do. In the story, Philip and Andrew were doubtful–Philip was worried about finances, saying, “More than a half year’s salary worth of food wouldn’t be enough for each person to have even a little bit” (verse 7). Andrew was worried about the amount of food, saying, “A youth here has five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that for a crowd like this?” (verse 9).
But Jesus wasn’t worried about those things. When Philip saw an issue with finances and Andrew saw an issue with provision, Jesus saw a miracle in the works. At times, our earthly wisdom will fail us. What seems so clear to our eyes and so logical may actually not be what God is doing. But we won’t know until we listen to God. Sometimes, through listening prayer, God wants to give us a new perspective on our situation–his perspective. But until we ask, we can get so stuck on our own way of seeing things that we forget to ask God, who may give us an entirely different view.
This relates to the second point about the importance of prayer. There are many great skills we have in the church family, and so many of us are wonderfully capable people. However, for the biggest challenges we face in life, often it is only Jesus who can provide the true solution. Last week during our Lead Well discipleship meetings, we discussed the topic of leading change. One of the conclusions we reached is that in the end, we can’t change people. Only God can do that. The same principle applies to some of our greatest prayer requests and challenges we face. No amount of our wisdom or effort can address those situations properly; it really requires God to move.
So we continue to listen and pray. We listen to God, always attentive to the voice of the Holy Spirit for guidance and God’s wisdom. And we pray, knowing that God hears us, and we acknowledge how deeply we need God’s hand in our lives. As we press further into the theme of Patient Endurance this year, I pray that we would be consistent in listening and prayer, through every situation that comes our way.