how many?

Mark 6
30 The apostles returned to Jesus from their ministry tour and told him all they had done and taught. 31 Then Jesus said, "Let's go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile." He said this because there were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his apostles didn't even have time to eat.

  32 So they left by boat for a quiet place, where they could be alone. 33 But many people recognized them and saw them leaving, and people from many towns ran ahead along the shore and got there ahead of them. 34 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.

  35 Late in the afternoon his disciples came to him and said, "This is a remote place, and it's already getting late. 36 Send the crowds away so they can go to the nearby farms and villages and buy something to eat."

  37 But 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!"

  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."

  39 Then Jesus told the disciples to have the people sit down in groups on the green grass. 40 So they sat down in groups of fifty or a hundred.

  41 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. 42 They all ate as much as they wanted, 43 and afterward, the disciples picked up twelve baskets of leftover bread and fish. 44 A total of 5,000 men and their families were fed from those loaves!


Let's think about this very quickly...

It says in verse 44 there were 5000 men at this event.

Ok, just for the sake of conversation, we know if there were 5000 men there, there had to be at least 5000 women. I think there were more, because there's always more women at stuff like this than men.

That takes the total up to 10,000.

Now then, again, for the sake of conversation, let's say every woman had 1 child with her. Yeah, I know, I know - those women probably had a whole lot more than 1 child with them, but like I said, just for conversation purposes, let's say they all had just 1.

Now we're talking 15,000 people there for lunch.

So, can you feel how many 15,000 people are? Do you have a reference point?

How many of you have been to Philips Arena in Atlanta? Or, how many of you have watched a home game on TV the Atlanta Hawks play basketball?

That's Philips Arena.

15,000 people would pretty much fill up Philips Arena.

That's how many people Jesus fed in Mark 6.

I went to one of the first Catalyst conferences held in another arena in Atlanta. I believe the year I went, there were 10,000 people there. They fed us box lunches from Chick-fil-A. It was a humongous task! Getting people to line up, then passing out the food, then the cleanup! Whew! what an undertaking!

And that was 10,000 adults.

So, Jesus fed 5000 men, 5000 women, & 5000 kids - 15,000 people - roughly enough folks to fill up Philips Arena.

And they had food left over.


So?


If we believe Jesus could pull of something of this magnitude, why do we have trouble believing He can take care of us & our puny, prissy, precious little lives?