Jesus and Food

So I've been reading this book, "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan. Amazing book. What I find so inspiring about it is that Francis has you pause several times within the book and check out some online content that he has posted on a website designed for the book. He also has you pause and read the Bible. It's really interesting. He has scripture throughout the book backing up what he says, but I'm in chapter 5 and I was just instructed to put the book down, open my Bible and read a book from the Gospel (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). Haha, and Courtney wonders why it's been taking me so long to read this book :-P.

Anyway, I'm reading Mark (as noted by my last post). I just read chapter 6 verse 30-44 and then chapter 8 verse 1-10.

Jesus feeds 5,000 and then 4,000. I mean, I'm keeping in mind that these are probably just estimations ... I mean, I doubt that the disciples were handing out comment cards and small pencils while Jesus was teaching and collected them in baskets at the end and counted them up so they could see how many people they fed. But I do bet they had a good sense for numbers and that 5,000 and 4,000 are at least close. Even if anything, they say that Jesus fed a whole lot of people ... with 5 loaves and 2 fish and then 7 loaves and a few small fish. So with 12 loaves of bread (of which I don't really know the sizing ... I'm sure they weren't like a loaf of Wonder Bread, but I bet it was something similar to that) and then maybe 5 fish (I'm noting "a few" as 2-4, as "a couple" is 2 and "several" is 4-6) Jesus fed roughly 9,000 people.

It is easy for me to pass-up these miracles. I mean, I've learned about them since I was a little kid. That Jesus took some loaves of bread and some fish, said a blessing and broke it all up and fed thousands of people with it. So it doesn't really seem like a big deal. But after being a college student, after being "on my own" for a bit, it is clear that this act is INSPIRING.

What's wild about what Jesus does is that He does it because He's been teaching for so long and thousands are still there listening and learning (being the good soil that the sowers seeds fall upon). He wants them to have a positive experience and knows that as sinful human-beings we suffer from hunger. So He decides that He's gonna be inspiring and after He gets done with His teachings He feeds them. No cost to them. Nothing fancy, bread and fish, but food enough to be "satisfied," (it says this in both Mark 6:42 and 8:8). They even had left-overs.

... did they just throw away the left-overs? They don't really explain that ... 'though I feel that's not the important part.

Miracles.
They're out there.
They happen.
Stand in awe of them.
Jesus rocks my world.