Living in the Image of God M06S09
We discuss Christ disciples feeding a crowd of thousands in the wilderness as an example in assessing capability to provide goods or service to address a need. The disciples recognized a need and cared about feeding a large crowd that had come to see Jesus. They assessed their capabilities and realized their resources would be overextended. They consulted with Jesus, in his dual role as their human leader and as God. They presented him with the problem and a proposed solution. Jesus challenged them to feed the crowd and provided a miracle, using the disciples’ human effort as channel for the miracle, by multiplying food that they provided, in a way beyond human imagination. To assess your capabilities regarding a need: evaluate your personal resources, provide opportunities for others to contribute, and include their potential contributions in the assessment. Focus on what you can humanly do, because God may use your human effort as channel for a miracle.
When you recognize a need that calls for your intervention and you are interested in doing what you can to alleviate the need, start by understanding the need and assessing your capabilities to intervene. Your capabilities include what you can raise from your personal resources and contributions from others. Although you consult with God in prayer continually and have faith of his potential intervention with miracle, you should not include miracles in assessing your capabilities.
The disciples did not count on miracles when they assessed that their resources would be overextended by feeding the crowd: “That would take more than half a year’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?” [Mark 6:37]. Based on their assessment, they presented their leader with a proposed solution: “Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” [Mark 6:36].
Jesus asked them to show what they could do, which they presented as a few loaves of bread and fish [Mark 6:38]: “How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Go and see.” When they found out, they said, “Five—and two fish.” He blessed and multiplied the bread and fish to more than needed to feed the crowd, illustrating that God would often use your human effort as channel for miracles.
Therefore, to commit to doing what you can to alleviate a need, understand the need and assess your capabilities, counting what you can personally provide and what you can raise from contributions by others. However, count only your human capabilities. Do not include miracles, because only God will determine if and when to intervene with miracles.
Recognizing A Need that Calls for Your Intervention
Recognizing a need that calls for your intervention requires being attentive to the events around you, enough to understand how the events will likely affect the people involved. The events often may not have been anticipated but develop to expose vulnerabilities of others that need to be addressed to mitigate the impact of the events.
In the study example, a large crowd had gathered to hear Jesus at a remote place where they would be unable to provide food for themselves. The crowd had gone to the remote place ahead and in anticipation of Jesus and his disciples. The disciples had just returned from a gospel mission and Jesus wanted to give them some rest at a quiet place away from the flow of people: “Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest’” [Mark 6:31].
However, people understood where Jesus and his disciples were going and went ahead of them. When Jesus and his disciples arrived, he saw the crowd that had gathered and began to teach and interact with them because he had compassion for them [Mark 6:34]: “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.”
As the interactions continued into the evening, the disciples realized that the facilities available there would be insufficient for the people to provide for their feeding. They recognized the need, i.e., the crowd needed food. They cared about the needy, assessed the need, and assessed their capabilities to provide for the need. They decided they could not provide for the need themselves and went to Jesus with a proposal [Mark 6:35-36]: “By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. ‘This is a remote place,’ they said, ‘and it’s already very late. Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.’”
The disciples recognized the need because they were attentive to their leader, the crowd around him, his interactions with the crowd, the fact that the environment could not serve the people’s feeding need, and the fact that night was fast approaching.
Disciples’ Assessment of their Capabilities Regarding the Need
Having recognized the need for feeding the crowd, the disciples assessed the need, assessed their capabilities to provide for the need, and developed a proposal to present to their leader.
To assess the need and their capabilities, they estimated what would feed one person and the number of people in the crowd. Based on the estimates, they determined that feeding the crowd “would take more than half a year’s wages” [Mark 6:37] of the disciples combined. They presented this estimate to support their proposal that Jesus should “[s]end the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”
Assess the Need
Assessing a need requires that you evaluate the need: e.g., for this specific example, number of people and cost of feeding one person. For other cases, the evaluation may be more complicated and include various kinds of fact finding. The purpose of the evaluation is to determine and cost the goods and services that would satisfy the need. Assessing a need requires a clear understanding of the need.
Assess Your Capabilities
Assessing your capabilities to provide for the need requires you evaluate what you have that you can apply to the need, and what you can convince other people to contribute. The disciples determined they would need the equivalent of 6-months’ income from their personal sources. They did not include potential contributions from others, maybe because they were in a remote place and there were no mechanisms available for raising contributions from others within the short time. However, because contributions from others often may be considered, the assessment of capabilities needs to identify potential paths for raising additional fund and evaluate such possibilities. Therefore, assessing your capabilities would likely be more complicated than what the disciples did.
Consult with God
A key aspect of assessing the need and capabilities is to take your assessment and your plan to God. Do this continually to give God time to direct your input. Seek his guidance and directive. The problem truly belongs to God, if your only motivation is to provide for the need to alleviate the Needy’s suffering. The disciples consulted with God when they presented their understanding to Jesus. He was their human leader and at the same time he was God in human form. Therefore, by presenting their concern to him, they were consulting him as God and as their human leader. First, recognize the problem belongs to God if your only motivation is to represent him in interactions regarding the need. Second, consult with him as you go along to seek his guidance and provide opportunity for his influence on your planning. Third, do not forget that your assessment has to be based on your human effort. God alone will determine whether to intervene with a miracle and how and when such intervention would be effective.
Summary of What We Learned
The study discusses Christ disciples feeding a crowd of thousands in the wilderness as an example in assessing capability to provide goods or service to address a need. The disciples recognized a need and cared about feeding a large crowd that had come to see Jesus. They assessed their capabilities and realized their resources would be overextended.
They consulted with Jesus, in his dual role as their human leader and as God. They presented him with the problem and a proposed solution. Jesus challenged them to feed the crowd and provided a miracle, using the disciples’ human effort as channel for the miracle, by multiplying food that they provided, in a way beyond human imagination.
To assess your capabilities regarding a need: evaluate your personal resources, provide opportunities for others to contribute, and include their potential contributions in the assessment. Focus on what you can humanly do, because God may use your human effort as channel for a miracle.