Leviticus 14, Mark 8: 1 -21
What feeling do you have toward situations that you just don't understand? A person on the street homeless, what is the first thought that goes through your mind? A young teenage girl that is going to have a baby? A person that just looks differently than you do? Is it a feeling of disdain? A feeling of why? Compassion? Fear? If they wanted to do better they could?
Perhaps, you have felt all of these at one time or another for some of the situations mentioned above or none of them. Reading from Mark 8 this morning the words that jumped off the page at me were Jesus felt compassion. He wanted to help the feelings of hunger that they would have been feeling after 3 days with nothing to eat. These people were so caught up in the things Jesus was saying and doing they had not realized that huge rumbling was their bellies, but I guess Jesus heard them and wanted to help the situation. When we hear the rumblings around us do we want to help them?
Jesus knew if they left Him they would collapse on the way home. Isn't this true of us? Without Him our life falls to shambles all around us? We need the nourishment that only He provides. The story goes on to share that He fed that crowd of four thousand and that is only counting the men, so no telling how many women and children were also there! He was quite the host! Even providing a place to sit and eat and they were satisfied! Satisfied means content! I imagine they were after all they had been fed by Jesus physically and spiritually for three days! Jesus had shown them so much about how to help those suffering around them, to take care of them without judgment to feed off of Him!
Yet in just a few verses we read that the disciples were already worried about Jesus providing for them...How often do we forget just as quickly? Jesus provides way more than we will ever need and just like the disciples not realizing how much leftovers there were - we don't either! He gives us way more than we could possibly ever need and yet we allow worry, doubt, fear to creep in and steal our satisfaction!
Believe! Believe! Believe! Jesus provides our contention and we do not need to look anywhere else or to anyone else...everything else will definitely disappoint us!
Sweet blessings,
Debbie
1 comment:
That same word, compassion jumped out at me also. I thought, if Jesus has compassion on us when we are hungry just think how much he cares about everything that is going on in our lives.
The other thing that jumped out of the reading at me from Mark 8 today was the Pharisees asking Jesus for a sign from heaven, when the Bread of Heaven, Jesus was standing right in front of them. They were spiritually blind like me some times.
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