I will never forget that time when I was outside shoveling snow and my youngest son, Chris, who was about three at the time, was with me. I remember vividly hearing the blood curdling scream as I turned and saw Chris with his tongue stuck to a metal railing. He looked like Scott Schwartz from the movie “A Christmas Story.”

I panicked, I did not know what to do, that is until a thought entered my mind. Get a cup of warm water and pour it on Chris’ tongue. Sure enough, that did the trick, and I was so thankful that I did not have to rip my son from that post and change the way he tasted food.

Today, I am going to focus my attention on the topic of worry and anxiety. Granted, the story I shared was small beans compared to maybe some of the challenges you are facing right now. It was not cancer, or a car accident, or the dearth of a loved one. But when I heard that scream, anxiety soared in my heart, and I knew I needed to do something.

What is worry all about? Worry is an emotion we feel when our need is greater than what we have.  The space between what we need and what we have is called a loss of control. Worry is my frantic grasp at control.  In fact, I need to put control in parentheses because we need to tell the truth: we do not have as much control as we think we have.  We control how we respond to the challenges that come our way. But when you stop and really think, control is an illusion.

We have now come to our text. In this story we see that there is an incredible need.  The Bible says that there was 5,000 men who needed to be fed. This is a small number as most scholars believe that the crowd was much larger. There were also women and children present. We can count there being about 20,000 people who needed to be fed.

In this story, the disciples did not have enough resources to meet the need. The question is where are the disciples going to get enough bread to feed these people?  Their need outpaced their resources.

Oh, how we have had a couple tours of duty in the land called worry and anxiety.  Here we are feeling good one day, wake up the next and there is a lump. Something out of order with your body. Here you are, there is too much MONTH at the end of the MONEY. You wonder how the rent is going to get paid?  There is worry and anxiety and stress.  What do we do? This text gives us three lessons.

#1. The first lesson for our consideration is, when worried, do what you can do. Even though what you can offer is truly little, do something.  Like if you are stuck in an elevator, it does you no good to sit there and worry. Pick up the phone in the elevator and call the number, do what you can. If you are stuck in an unhappy marriage, it does you no good to only worry about it, do what you can, call on God. Pray! Call for a counselor or a therapist. If you have financial pressures, do what you can. Cry out for help. Call a financial planner, sit with someone, show them your bills, draft a budget, do what you can. If you feel funny about your body, go to the doctor for a physical. Maybe you are concerned about what the outcome will be? The problem will not go away by sticking your head in the sand.

#2. You must relinquish control. Here the disciples in our story have 20,000 people who needed to eat. Jesus asks Philip what do YOU think we ought to do? I do not know about you, but I do not like being asked a question by an expert who knows the answer. But here in verse 6 we are told an important fact, “[Jesus] said this to test him, for He Himself knew what He was going to do.” 

The Greek word for “test” is interesting: it means to “reveal the true nature of something.”  The implication is oftentimes that revelation only comes through difficulty. Why is Jesus doing this? Remember that there is a large crowd of about 20,000 people following him. The Bible says that they are following Him because of the signs that He did. In other words, am I following Jesus because He healed my aunt, uncle, I have a need, or believe Jesus is a good luck charm? Jesus wants the disciples to discern, “Am I a true follower? Or am I just following Jesus for the benefit package?” 

 Jesus says, I am doing this to test you, not because I do not know what is really there, but because I need you to see your own heart. To know whether you are following Me for the right motives, I am going to take you through situations where you do not have control. Where worry and anxiety are knocking on your door. Because that is the only way God can discern why you are really following Me.

#3. Third and finally, “How do I deal with worry?”  Do not forget your basket! One of the things that has always perplexed me about this story is that at the end of this meeting, there was still twelve baskets left over.  This messes with me because the God I serve is not a God of lack or waste. So, what is up with the leftovers?

Scholars tell us that it was the custom of the day that whenever you served people, those who served ate last. Here are the disciples and 20,000 people. There is this huge need, but only limited resources, and God miraculously takes the little and makes it enough. Then it is the disciples’ time to eat at the end. How many disciples were there? Twelve. How many baskets are there left over? Twelve. They represent God’s miraculous provision of seeing you through an incredible challenge.

If you continue to read chapter 14, you will see that another miracle takes place. There was a storm that came upon the disciples as they were on the Sea of Galilee. These veteran fishermen were scared for their lives and Jesus asks, “Why are you scared? Why are you freaking out when you have with you a visual reminder of the faithfulness of God?”  Because their problem is our problem. You are either in a storm, or just out of a storm, or headed back into a storm and you had better bring your basket. When storms hit our lives, we focus on the storms of the present and forget God’s baskets of blessing from the past.

 One of the best spiritual disciplines I think you could ever do is to learn the discipline of journaling. Every year I type out my prayers, and my goal is to fill up a folder full of prayers.

Every year I just write prayers to God. You ask me to pray about something; I put you in there. There are also things that I pray for myself and my family.  I also journal about struggles that I have. Situations that I find myself in. Sometimes when I find myself in a present storm, the Holy Spirit will say, “Why do you not reach for the 2017 basket?” Because there is just something helpful about reading the stories of the past and how God brought me though this then I know that God can bring me through this now.

As I close, I ask you what is holding you in worry or in anxiety? Remember, do what you can. Relinquish control. Do not forget the baskets of blessings that God has given to you in the past. If God is for us, who can be against us? The answer is no one.

Meet you next week at the P.E.W.

Pastor Joel