There are things I love beside the wonder of the miracle Jesus performed.
1. Jesus ups the ante on the disciples. They have been away, have seen and done wonderful things in Jesus' name and now He asks them to go further, to be willing to have their faith stretched and strengthened a little more. Jesus never allows them to fall back to the observer role which they had before. No! He instructs them to get into the crowd and find what food there is. Amazingly, they find so little. It could have been that those with food selfishly kept it to themselves and hid it from the disciples or that the walk and rapt listening to Jesus had been entirely spontaneous and had caught most of the crowd out!
2. I love that Jesus recognised that people need to eat. We get hungry, those followers couldn't be expected to walk ten miles home without being fed.
3. It was just a boy's lunch-the loaves would have been tiny, a couple of bites' worth and the fish, tiddlers. Yet Jesus produced enough for 5000 people to eat until they were full and to have twelve baskets left over! Many wise Bible commentators have sought to answer why there were twelve left, but I simply want to say, ''What an abundance!'' How incredible God is!
4. Jesus said grace before the sharing out of the food. God was in the provision and this reminds me of George Muller and his orphanages in Bristol. On many occasions he would gather the children together in the dining area and say grace without their being any food! Always, food would come from some kindly baker and they were all able to eat. Sometimes saying grace is a regular act for food we have already bought and cooked, but at other times, grace can be an act of faith!
5. We may think we have little talent to give to Jesus, but when we put ourselves into His hands and give Him ourselves, there is no telling what He can do in us and through us!