16.10 | In Your Hand
John 6:1-24
‘One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?”’
John 6:8-9
On a mountainside on the Sinai peninsula, sometime in the late bronze age, a nomadic shepherd was talking to a voice that came from a bush. The bush was burning—crackling flames and rising smoke—and yet flames that caused no destruction. The voice revealed Himself as the God of eternal existence — before, imminent, and beyond — and gave the shepherd a specific mandate.
To set His people free.
The story of Moses and the burning bush runs deep in the annals of history — an interruptive moment that triggered the emancipation of a nation and the re-ignition of a faith movement that would invade history with the purposes of God.
Moses did what everyone does in the Bible when confronted with inclusion in the purposes of God. He looked at himself. He looked at his limited abilities. He looked at his limited resources. He looked at his failed past. He looked, and he saw in himself nothing but deficiency in contrast to the awesome plans of God.
God responds to his questions and objections in a number of ways. But one of them asks a question that can change how we see any situation:
What is in your hand?1
It’s a beautiful shift. It changes the conversation from what Moses doesn’t have, to what he does have. It shifts the perspective from what is lacking, to what God can accomplish will the humble contents that fill the hands of the willing.
Today’s story is on another mountainside, well over a millennia later. Five thousand men, plus women and children, have gathered to listen to Jesus. They are hungry. And, once again, a man finds himself feeling deficient before the purposes of God.
For Jesus, this is a perfect discipling opportunity. He turns to Philip:
Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?
Philip does what most of us do. He counts what he doesn’t have.
Two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough.2
Whether we count our lack of ability, money, strength, health, social connections, resources or confidence, we can so often find Jesus looking to us for a solution, and give Him all the many reasons we simply don’t have enough.
But then Andrew flips the paradigm.
There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish.
Andrew makes the Moses movement — he turns from what they do not have, to what they do have.
What is in your hand?
When we are pressed, the Lord invites this question of us. He invites this question when we are fearful and stuck. He invites this question when we feel like we are lacking and strung out. He asks this question when we look at the scale of a problem and find ourselves utterly inadequate to meet the need.
What is in your hand?
Such is the way of Jesus. With Moses, that staff in his hand would confront the mightiest empire on the earth with the force of heaven. It would part the seas, and bring water from a rock. With the disciples, a boy’s packed lunch would feed a stadium of hungry people.
Change the question, my friends. What is in your hand? Feeling deficient and inadequate is commonplace in the discipleship journey. Jesus is waiting there to teach us a different way of being. It feels discomforting, for it calls us beyond our comfort and our ability. And yet, it invites us to faith adventures where we let go of our grasping illusions of control, and learn what our God can do, when the weak and willing learn to simply offer Him what they have.
Change the question.
A shepherd’s staff. A packed lunch.
What is in your hand?
Reflect:
Where do I feel the stretch of deficit? What is in my hand?
Pray:
Father,
If I were to write a list
Of where I feel lack,
It could get long.
If I were to write my wish list
Of character improvements,
Financial provision,
Health revolution,
Strength maximisation,
Connection creation,
And the sheer courage to do it all—
Well, Father,
Maybe there would be no longer any space
For You.
And so,
I tread the simpler way.
Here is what I have:
I bring it to You.
Take it, bless it, multiply it,
That my life would not be an accolade to my talent, might, or genius,
But would tell a story
Of the God who works wonders
With the humble contents
Of willing hands.
In Jesus’ Name,
Amen
Old Testament:
For those also reading the Old Testament this year, your additional readings are here:
Ezra 1:1-3:7 | Psalm 119:49-64
Exodus 4:2
In modern money, that’s approaching £20,000.