Send the crowd away

"When the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done. Then He took them with Him and they withdrew by themselves to a place called Bethsaida, but the crowds learned about it and followed Him. He welcomed them and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed healing.
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.'
He replied, 'You give them something to eat.'" (Luke 9:10-13)

This passage can be a parallel in a lot of ways, probably the most pointed out being that God provided in an impossible situation. But today I noticed something I had never really seen in it before.

Notice how the disciples saw a problem and immediately asked Jesus to make it go away. They saw that the people hadn't eaten and asked Jesus to send them away to get something to eat. And how does Jesus respond? He tells them to deal with the problem. The next part of the verse says this:

"They answered, 'We only have five loaves of bread and two fish-unless we go and buy food for all this crowd.'"

Now it doesn't say this in the Bible, but I could totally see some sarcasm going on here. Because seriously, the disciples didn't have anywhere near enough money to go buy food for 5,000+ people.

We can be like this a lot, I think. A hard situation comes up, and we, knowing that God can do anything, immediately ask Him to make it go away, most of the time not even stopping to ask whether He wants it to go away or not.

See, if Jesus had sent all the people away, there would've been no miraculous feeding, and the disciples wouldn't have seen God's divine provision.

God knows what He's doing. I'll probably have to tell myself that a thousand times before I die, but it's true. He knew that the disciples and the people as well needed to see His power. He knew that He could provide. In His eyes, there was never a problem in the first place.

So next time a problem comes up, stop and think before you beg God to make it go away. He just might have something better than that.