Thought
for the Day – Wednesday 5th August
38 “How much food do you have?” he asked. “Go and
find out.”
They came back and reported, “We have
five loaves of bread and two fish.”
39 Then Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down in
groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in
groups of fifty or a hundred.
41 Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward
heaven, and asked God’s blessing on the food. Then, breaking the loaves into
pieces, he kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it
to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share. 42 They
all ate as much as they wanted, 43 and afterward, the
disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish. 44 A
total of 5,000 men and their families were fed.
(Mark 6 v38-44)
Once Caryl
had asked me to do this daily ‘thought for the day’ (about a week ago), I spent
quite a bit of time thinking about what was required and trying to come up with
some sort of plan as to how to fill the 14 individual daily slots.
While I was
still in employment, there were two things I was made aware of in relation to
planning that have stuck in my mind and these are as follows:
1.
Failure to plan is planning to fail…..and
secondly
2.
If you want to give God a laugh, tell him your
plans
Well I’m into the third day and my best laid plan has ‘gang
aft agley’ for the third time and I will attempt to explain why.
For about the last ten Sundays, May and I have joined in (via
Zoom) with morning worship coming from St Columba’s Church of Scotland, Jersey
in the Channel Islands following an invite from Katie, one of their elders we
met at last year’s General Assembly. On
Sunday past, the minister was talking about the miracle of the 5 loaves and 2
small fish and how it could apply to us in this present time.
We hear via various news outlets of businesses closing or
being under the threat of closure, employees losing their jobs or having to
take pay cuts. Churches are also
suffering due to no offerings being uplifted and no income from hall lets but
regular bills still having to be paid. In
our bible story, the disciples understandably thought that it would be better
to send everyone home than even attempt to feed them especially when they only
had five loaves and two fish. However,
after Jesus had asked God to bless this food, there was more than enough to go around. When all the churches survey their empty pews
and their empty balance sheets, what would be a better time to seriously come
to God in prayer and ask for His blessing and His intervention to see us
through these challenging times that none could have anticipated and planned
for? From only a little contribution
from ourselves, God can produce great things.
Prayer
Loving God,
We pray that you
will be with those most seriously affected by the current world pandemic. So many have lost friends and relatives causing
grief from which some will never recover.
Be with them Lord. We would also
ask you to be with the individuals that have been drawn into poverty at this
time and pray for a recovery in all areas of society. We would especially ask you to be with the
Church congregations that are suffering at this time and ask you to help them survive
this current challenge and bless them in all aspects of their work that is
undertaken to glorify your name in this world.
Amen.
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