Set Up (Luke 9:10-17)

Have you ever been led somewhere, through something, that seemed spontaneous, but you then realized it was a set up?  Until we have become perfectly formed into the image of Christ, the process of transformation is always taking place.  It seems the times I have experienced God the most, He quickly takes me through a test and trial, to cause me to trust Him even more.  He does not want me to become too comfortable for I can easily become complacent and stunt my spiritual growth.

We see in Luke 9:10-17 "the story of the five loaves and two fish," the disciples had returned from being sent out, preaching the Kingdom, healing the sick, and delivering the oppressed, they were excited, telling Jesus everything.  My natural and spiritual kids love to tell me of their accomplishments it is encouraging to them how proud I am of them.  But, just like the disciples here they can get so excited telling their stories that they forget about the one who is listening, I might have other plans, I might be tired, hungry etc, they get so caught up in the story, they are not aware how long they are speaking just expecting me to listen until they are done.  Sometimes I would like to do what Jesus did for He slipped away quietly and was gone.  But it says, the crowds found out where he was going and followed.  Instead of Jesus saying can I just get a break, He welcomed them, teaching them and healing those who were sick, for Jesus knew what He was doing, this was a set up, everything He did had a divine purpose.

All of a sudden now the disciples who had been so caught up in what God did through them that they were basically unaware of the needs of those around them, were now fully aware and started pleading to Jesus to send the crowds away for food and lodging, complaining there is nothing to eat here in this remote place, probably thinking why couldn't He have just stayed back near the village listening to their stories.

Now the unbelief of the disciples are going to be clearly seen.  Now they became sarcastic with Jesus "are you expecting us to go and buy enough food for this whole crowd."  Sarcasm is used to make someone look dumb, when it is used against someone they usually try to defend themselves so they don't look so dumb.  Jesus though was using all this as a setup for the disciples to realize that their faith is still very limited.  They could believe God for so called spiritual needs like healing and deliverance, but not for providing the necessities for simply feeding the hungry.

So Jesus once again blew away their narrow minds and took five loaves and two fish and fed the five thousand in whom had more than enough to eat with leftovers remaining.  So much of the challenges we face in life is just God setting us up to increase our faith in His unlimited power in our lives.  The quicker we can believe the quicker we get through the challenge and not have to repeat it again, as we will see later on with the disciples.