Arithmetic

My thoughts have been flying wild lately. Like for instance, last week I passed a Krispy Kreme truck....the driver was overweight....and my crazy thoughts went to a question...."I wonder if he actually gains weight by just smelling those soft, warm creamy doughnuts that he delivers
everyday?" Strange isn't it?

Stranger yet, is the world around us? Financial crisis, gas shortages, debates, doomsday machine....I could go on and on. Our world, as we know it, is changing rapidly around us. I panicked yesterday....my "new" bank (as of last week) sold out to Citigroup.

Now do you think my financial advisor knew that as I was signing the papers?..... or did he forget to let me in on the secret?

Then I pass a gas station on my way home from work....and there were bags on every pump with the words...."SOLD OUT" on the bags.

Now although I wondered how I would get gas should the situation continue to deteriorate.....

I wondered more about how the delivery trucks would get gas to bring in our food.

Ok stop.....I wonder too much....when my thoughts should be centered more around God's solid truth....not on uncertainty.....all the above things are uncertainties....and no one can tell which way the economy will go....BUT regardless of which way the economy goes....I know who holds the future....it is God. He holds it all in His hands.

His ways are not our ways....His economy is not like our economy....He even does arithmetic totally different than we do.....

Take for instance the feeding of the multitude......In Mark 6, Jesus takes what amounts to a kid's lunch and turns it into a miraculous feast for a crowd many believe was in excess of 20,000 people (when you take in account the women and children who were also present that day).

"Jesus saw the huge crowd as He stepped from the boat, and He had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So He began teaching them many things. Late in the afternoon His disciples came to Him and said, 'This is a remote place, and it's already getting late. Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat.'" Mark 6:34-36

The verse goes on to say in verse 37

"Jesus said, 'You feed them.' 'With what?' they asked. 'We'd have to work for months to earn enough money to buy food for all these people!'

This comment here by the disciples is called natural multiplication and addition....which is what I called myself doing yesterday....looking in the natural instead of looking in the spiritual and what God's Word had to say about the situation looming over our economy.

Then Jesus asks a question in verse 38

"'How much bread do you have?' He asked. Go and find out.' They came back and reported, 'We have five loaves of bread and two fish.'"

With our ever declining economy....it seems many of us are taking stock in what we have left....instead of what we have ever present IN CHRIST!

There were so many people in this remote place that were hungry. The disciples went out to see how much food they had to work with. They came back with only two fish the size of small sardines and five loaves of bread which were the size of muffins. This was all the disciples could gather up among all these people!

Verse 39-44, "Then Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of fifty or a hundred. Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward Heaven, and blessed them. Then, breaking the loaves into pieces, He kept giving the bread to the disciples so they could distribute it to the people. He also divided the fish for everyone to share. They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish. A total of 5,000 men and their families were fed from those loaves!"

Now, granted, I'm not a mathematician...but I do know that a few loaves and fishes will NOT feed a multitude of people. And if I were a disciple on that day back thousands of years ago...I would have been the first to have raised my hand....and said..."ummm Sir.....we only have these few loaves and fishes...there is not enough to feed all these hungry people".

Doubt.....

But God doesn't want us to doubt....He wants us to KNOW. To lift our eyes....to the heavens...where our help comes from. You can finish reading this miraculous story of God's multiplication in Mark chapter 6....it may well do us all good to remember how God works in the area of "lack" and turns it around to supply every need!

In writing this I am reminded of a neat song...by Bebo Norman it speaks of what Christians around the world should be doing now......

I Will Lift My Eyes
Written
by Bebo Norman and
Jason Ingram

God, my God, I cry out

Your beloved needs You now

God, be near, calm my fear

And take my doubt

Your kindness is what pulls me up

Your love is all that draws me in

I will lift my eyes to the Maker

Of the mountains I can’t climb

I will lift my eyes to the Calmer

Of the oceans raging wild

I will lift my eyes to the Healer

Of the hurt I hold inside

I will lift my eyes, lift my eyes to You

God, my God, let Mercy sing

Her melody over me

God, right here all I bring

Is all of me‘Cause You are and You were and You will be
forever

The Lover I need to save me

‘Cause You fashioned the earth and

You hold it together, God

So hold me now

© 2006 Appstreet Music (ASCAP) / New Spring (ASCAP).

All rights for the world on behalf of Appstreet Music (ASCAP) administered by New
Spring (ASCAP). / Peertunes,
Ltd./GrangeHill Music/J Ingram (SESAC)

I would like to leave you with SOLID, RELIABLE advice....not based on my opinion (because I have the ability to be the greatest doubter of all...) or the economic outlook....but SOLID advice....from God's Word....this is WHAT we should all be doing today....lifting our eyes and looking to the ONE that saved us, healed us, made us whole, and will one day give us our eternal destination with Him in Heaven:

(I would much rather trust the "Feeder of Multitudes" rather than a financial advisor on Wall Street anyday!)

Psalms 121

I will lift up my eyes to the mountains;

From where shall my help come? ]

2 My help comes from the LORD,

Who made heaven and earth.

3 He will not allow your foot to slip;

He who keeps you will not slumber.

4 Behold, He who keeps Israel

Will neither slumber nor sleep.

5 The LORD is your keeper;

The LORD is your shade on your right hand.

6 The sun will not smite you by day,

Nor the moon by night.

7 The LORD will protect you from all evil;

He will keep your soul.

8 The LORD will guard your going out and your coming in

From this time forth and forever.

Blessings!

Lesa