'Purse' or 'Provider'?

So they gathered them all up and filled twelve baskets with pieces left over from the five barley loaves which the people had eaten. (John 6:13)

As a church we spend a great deal of time worrying and wondering if we will have enough. Enough people. Enough money. Enough resources. We look at our currently situation and allow ourselves to despair. There is work to do and yet it seems that there are not the resources to do it. Is the problem really one of 'resources' or of vision.

In the account of the feeding of the 5000 recorded in John 6:1-13, Jesus asks Philip a simple question. When confronted with a large crowd of hungry people he asks Philip 'where' they can get the bread to feed these people. (v5) Interestingly Philip answers Jesus on how much it will cost, but says nothing about the 'where'. Jesus is asking Philip to look for the 'provider' while Philip chooses to look to the 'purse'.

It struck me that this is often the way we deal with situations within the church. We see opportunities and needs, but get bogged down in the 'how much it will cost' discussions and 'we don't have enough' arguments so that eventually nothing, or at the most, very little gets done. Like Philip we look to the 'purse' and take our eyes off of the 'provider', our gracious Lord God, who promises to give us all the we need.

Now we can immediately start to talk about being good stewards and managers of what God has entrusted to us, but if this is our focus then again we are looking everywhere except to the 'provider'.

John, in writing his gospel narrative of the life of Jesus, emphasizes over and over that God is a God of abundance. The signs of Jesus...the wedding at Cana and the feeding of the 5000...are all about God's abundant provision. Jesus speaks about abundant life for all. His conversation with the woman at the well speaks of 'springs of living water' that flow and over flow in the lives of those who are thirsty. Time and again John points us to the 'provider' and away from the 'purse'.

What about you? Are you thinking more about the 'purse' than the 'provider'? Are your expectations more about survival than living an abundant life? Are you overflowing with grace for all people as God's grace has overflowed into your life and the lives of people around you or are you too busy protecting it, saving it, guarding it.

God comes to us with open hands. Hands that pour out blessing. He invites us to live and give just as generously to one another and to Him.