John 6:5-6 NKJV
Then Jesus lifted up His eyes, and seeing a great multitude coming toward Him, He said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” But this He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do.
Beloved,
Scholars have determined that more than 20,000 people were present during Jesus’ sermon and his eventual miracle near the sea of Galilee referenced here. While the magnitude of people present is enough to cause shock, almost all of these people had been with Jesus all day without access to a proper meal. They were hungry for food, but they showed a greater desire for the eternal word, one that Jesus did not ignore. However, the disciples responded with a disbelief in their ability to meet the needs of such a great crowd. Where the disciples saw an impossibility, Jesus saw God’s will coming to fruition, and the only thing that influenced the perspectives described was their understanding of the purpose of the occasion.
Much like the hunger of the people who gathered to hear Jesus preach, every crisis we encounter is only a platform for the excellency of God’s plan to find fruition. The devil wants to use these seasons to take away your peace and take advantage of your emotions to cause you to speak contrary to how you are supposed to as a Christian, but the only thing that can get you through crises without you falling into this trap of the devil is to have this awareness: God always has a plan (Jeremiah 29:11). Our lives on earth may never be devoid of crisis. However, your perspective on seasons of crises determines your expectation and thus your willingness to overcome them, sacrificing temporal comfort for eternal relevance. What might seem undesirable right now might be a necessity God lays on you to usher you into something greater, like Jesus (Hebrews 12:2). Even when this is not the case, we are sure that a better version of ourselves awaits us at the end of every successfully traversed crisis (James 1:3). Your perspective will determine the steps you take from the moment you are introduced to a season of crisis, so you must understand the proper way to orient yourself because those steps determine the trajectory of the rest of your experiences in that season.
Next time, we will discuss what three specific reactions you need to deploy to control your situation in crisis.
I commend you to God and to the word of His grace.
I call you blessed. I call you NATIONS.
