The Solutions of Jesus

What do you do when you have a problem that you cannot solve? Do you ask God for help, or do you tell God how He must solve your problem? Many times in our supplications to God, we tell Him how He should solve our problems. This is what happened in the story found in Matthew 14:13–21. There was a problem: it was evening, and people who had come a great distance to see Jesus were hungry. The disciples told Jesus to send the people into the villages to buy food. But that was not Christ’s solution. His solution was that the disciples should feed the people. How were they going to feed several thousand people? Christ’s “solution” sounded crazy, while theirs seemed to be more reasonable.

 Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever asked God to solve a problem, but the solution He gives you seems crazy? That is when we need to exercise faith, accept the will of God, and trust in His Word. When we ask for solutions from God, we must also ask for the necessary faith to accept them and trust that His solutions are better than ours.

The disciples agreed to do what Jesus had told them to do. They brought to Him the only food they could find: five loaves of bread and two fish (Matthew 14:17). Jesus took this small amount of food from the disciples. He prayed over it, asking His Father’s blessing. And from that small quantity of food Jesus miraculously fed more than five thousand hungry people!

 If we put what we have at God’s disposal, even if it is small, He can use our “little” to create amazing solutions to problematic situations. Even if we think our talents are small but give them to God, He will use them to help work out His solutions. In fact, God’s solutions may often exceed our expectations.

 That is what happened when the disciples gave Jesus five loaves of bread and two fish. This was nothing compared with the problem at hand. Yet all the many people “ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained” (Matthew 14:20, NKJV). Not one person left hungry, and there was much food left over to share with others.

 Do not tell Jesus what to do with your problem but accept whatever solution He has. Leave your problems in His hands. Give Him what you have, and watch for His solutions.

Pamela Catalán