Banking on Loaves and Fishes

I was thinking about this driving down the road. How, God? Why, God? Why would you give me this dream, confirm it clearly so many times and not allow the space to make it happen? I'm to keep at it against the likely tide of prospects, but how? The dream was far from fitting in the space a year ago. The dream has grown at the same time that the space for it has shrunk. What now?

I believe we learn through trial and error, patience and practice to discern the voice of God. I've never heard God shout or seen him write on walls. I've never heard him name himself. (Like, "Michelle, God here, letting you know that you should . . .", that never happens to me. But still, he talks.

We live in the country. The reflective nature of driving is much aided by deer in the cornfields, turkeys in along the side of the road, and the conversation of trees. My kids have a way of filling our house with their presence. In the car, they disappear for me. Tucked safely in seatbelts, they'd have to be on fire to make it through my thoughts and gate-pounding some days.

It was like that the other day. Although God has yet to be intimidated by my threats, I was working up to making some anyway. I was going to quit. Not just writing but everything. Laundry. Cleaning. Cooking. Praying. Driving. Getting dressed. Trying.

I was working up to how there was no point. Because even though he's given me a dream, he hasn't told me how to do it. He hasn't given me the tools or time (OR TIME) to do whatever it is you do to make it happen . . . So what exactly should I do?

Which is when I heard: maybe you should bank on loaves and fishes.

Neither of us said anything for a while. I was cocking my head trying to figure him out. Who knows what he was doing.

On the mountain that day, Jesus spends the whole day teaching and healing people. At the end of the day people bring legitimate human need to Jesus. They're hungry. The disciples suggest a logical solution: tell people to leave and go find something to eat.

No, Jesus tells the disciples. You feed them.

Yeah, okay, like that is not going to work, they said, because this is all we've got.

Then with five loaves of bread and two fish, Jesus feeds all 5000 of them.

Banking on loaves and fishes. I repeat it softly over days, sit with it. Banking on loaves and fishes. I spend more days trying to put together this article. I am stuck trying to pull it all together.

But what does it mean, I ask frustrated. Banking on loaves and fishes. What does it all boil down to?

And I swear he said: you bring your need; I'll bring the miracles.

Copyright 2015 Michelle Dawn Jones.
Image: The Miracle of Loaves and Fishes. Lambert Lombard (1505/1506–1566) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.