You Are Perfectly Incapable By Pete BriscoeSample

Not Enough Is More Than Enough

There’s only one miracle that’s recorded in all four of the gospels. I think it’s the one story God wanted to make sure we got! And it’s a story that helps us understand why Jesus asks us to do things beyond our limits. 

We find one record of it in Luke 9:1-17. The disciples have just returned from going village to village spreading the good news. Jesus takes them with him and they withdraw by themselves. But soon the crowds find them and gather to hear Jesus’ teaching. The story picks up in verses 12-13: 

“Late in the afternoon the Twelve came to him and said, ‘Send the crowd away so they can go to the surrounding villages and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here.’ [Jesus] replied, ‘You give them something to eat.’” 

Now take a look at how the disciples immediately respond to this idea: “We have only five loaves of bread and two fish—unless we go and buy food for this crowd.” (v. 13)

The five loaves and two fish belong to a little boy who just so happens to be close by. We learn this detail in John’s account of this story in John 6.

The disciples’ mindset was that their limited resources—the little boy’s bread and fish—limited their contribution. They just didn’t have enough. But Jesus asked them to feed the people anyway. Why? 

Because in the hands of Jesus, not enough is more than enough.