Feeding A Crowd

Feeding a Crowd

There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?

John 6:9

When my son got married a few years ago, our family and friends helped with the meal. Everyone had a great time, and the food was wonderful! The Amish often ask their friends and family members to help with the wedding cooking, too, but these days they sometimes use wedding wagons to make the preparation and service easier:

[Wedding wagons] are portable kitchens that can be hired to prepare all the wedding food. Several Amish own and rent out the kitchens as a part-time job.

The kitchens typically have five gas stoves in them, sinks, and cabinets along both sides of the wall. The cabinets contain all the dishes, stainless-steel kettles, and utensils needed to serve the hundreds of people that attend a typical wedding. The wagons are generator powered, with hot and cold running water, silverware, and over three hundred place settings, including coffee cups, glasses, and silverware. Most of them have a ramp for easy walking up and down. And a lot of times they have a cooler inside with shelves for the potato salads and things that need to be kept cool.

I love the idea of wedding wagons, but I love Jesus’ manner of feeding crowds even more: “‘Tell everyone to sit down,’ Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. (The men alone numbered about 5,000.) Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted” (John 6:10-11).

Jesus didn’t put out an invitation for a potluck. He didn’t have an Amish wedding wagon. Jesus’ only resource was Himself, and when we have Jesus, we don’t have need of anything else either.

Whatever situation you’re facing today, Jesus is enough. Just as He directed the disciples, He is able to direct a miracle in your life too. When we have the best of the world’s resources, we can feed a crowd, but when we have Jesus, we can also see our faith multiply!

Dear heavenly Father, today I offer the little I have to You. Multiply it as only You can.