Bill and I just hosted our whole family at our house in the mountains for one week. That meant fourteen of us (and a dog) in our four bedroom, three bathroom house – nine adults and five children between 5 and 9. I asked a group of women from my church to pray for stamina and for everyone to have a good time.
Straight out of the gate, so to speak, I stumbled and behaved inhospitably. I felt sad that I would have to give such a bad report to my friends as to the result of their prayers. I apologized badly to my child, but even so, I was treated with grace and understanding. The next morning I coincidentally got to Mark 6 in my Bible reading. I read the account of Jesus’ visit to his home town, Nazareth. Mark reports, “And he could do no mighty work there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief.” Mark first says “he could do no mighty work there” but then follows it with a second statement noting their unbelief. I have always understood that Jesus was not suddenly powerless in Nazareth, like Superman in the presence of kryptonite, but that he showed his power in response to faith, in response to being asked for help. In Nazareth, the unbelief of his fellow townspeople prevented most of them from asking for his help in faith.
As I read this account, I was struck by two things. First, though I asked for prayer for divine provision of stamina, I still was thinking I would get through the week on my own strength of character. My early failure showed me how frail I was and how much I was in need of his strength. Second, I realized my own prayerlessness in real time for his help! These realizations deeply encouraged me that God was working for my good, to prompt me to pray and to humbly recognize that the strength to serve comes from him, not from my maturity or character. So I really began to pray, and he gave me confidence that he would answer.
Mark 6 also contains the account of the feeding of the 5000. The disciples have all just returned from ministry in pairs, preaching and healing. Jesus takes them away by themselves to be refreshed, but that retreat is thwarted by the crowds following them. In concern for those crowds, Jesus teaches and cares for them. Finally, it is evening and the disciples hope the crowds will go home. But then Jesus urges his disciples to feed them. The needs of the crowd exceed the resources they have – five loaves and two fish – until Jesus prays and miraculously multiplies the food as they break and distribute it. I have long found this story reassuring to me as a minister– that when I think I need rest but the needs press on me, he will supply for me to meet them. Not that Christians should not build sabbath rest into their lives, nor that they should never say no to requests, but that there are times when God is saying “you give them something to eat.” Family vacation provided both kinds of times. There were times during the week when I said yes and saw God’s provision of strength. There were times when I asked others to help me and that was his means of providing the strength. And there were times when I gave myself down time which fortified and refueled me to enjoy my family!
Midweek, one of the women texted to acknowledge how much I still needed prayer to make it through the remainder of the time. What an encouragement that was to me that my sisters were holding up my arms by their prayers! (Exodus 17:12)
The loaves and fishes were visible throughout the week. One visible provision was a fifth child’s bike, so that all five grandchildren had bikes and helmets to use throughout the week. A church member had brought us a bike they no longer needed back in the spring, and we wondered how one bike would be useful, but accepted it anyway. We toted the other four bikes from my daughter’s house at the beginning of the week together. It meant no one was left out of our evening walks/cycling as a family!
I saw God’s provision especially on Friday when we returned to our house after two days of camping and we had more meals to prepare. Can I just say, I hate to make lunch? I have trained Bill to make his own lunch, but here I was having to provide fixings for 14 people to make lunch on the last day. The grocery store was 20 minutes away, which was insurmountable given our need of showers and rest. I opened my garage freezer and there were two frozen pizzas I had bought a couple of weeks earlier and never used. But what is that among so many? Well it turned out to be quite enough when added to the unused can of chicken, unused burger buns, and various other food items that turned up!
I realize how small a thing it is to compare God supplying stamina for a week of family vacation to the feeding of the 5000. But I think God intends for us to take Jesus’ miracles which he did while he was on earth and believe that he is still active today to empower us for the service to which he calls us. And I must apply his power to these smaller challenges I face and believe him to provide for me to serve others cheerfully in constantly arising opportunities. Each event accrues memories, either sweet or grumpy, of our lives together. I wanted this family vacation to be a “museum of good memories” (I am using Edith Schaeffer’s metaphor from What Is A Family?) for each one involved. By God’s grace and provision it was! On the final night, my children and children-in-law pronounced the verdict on the week by saying they hoped to return every year! My heart was deeply encouraged. Though Jesus has ascended to heaven, he continues to be with us always in the large and small moments of our lives, to empower us to feed others and to rejoice in answers to prayer.