How Many Loaves Have Ye?
By L. A. Reed
JUST before the feeding of the four thousand with the few loaves and fishes, Jesus asked the question, "How many loaves have ye?" These words suggest a weighty truth, a wonderful lesson; namely, the strict continuity of the work of God in the natural and in the spiritual world. It is the lesson that to-morrow must, in some wise, come out of to-day; that the present has come out of the past, and is a product of the past. It is the truth that the future is to be formed from the present, that what is to be must come out of what has been. It may be that the old is to be enlarged or renewed, or is to receive great and startling changes, a revolution perhaps; but still from such, the little and insignificant and forever inefficient, God will make the greater things — the things more fully to His purpose. Christ was the Builder of worlds, the Creator of the universe. Thus He stood with all the powers of those worlds, that universe, at His command. He might have swept aside the few loaves and the small fishes. Yes, when they were offered, He might have said, and no one could have questioned the pertinence of the saying, What are these? Think you they are sufficient? The disciples had even said, in dismay, "What are they among so many?" Yes, with infinite power at His command, Christ might have utterly ignored the few remnants of food offered, and have bidden the desert burst into a glory of orchards, and fish-pools, and crystal water flashing at the feet of the astonished multitude. He could have done it. It were possible; but thus there would have been no lesson of hope and trust, no lesson for you and me. Instead, He takes the food, little as there is, — so little that no one thought of even mentioning it until He asks for it, — and with this little remnant He satisfies the hunger of these famished ones. Take an illustration: Here is a man with a handful of corn. He says, Here is enough corn to fill the world. Here is enough to make the fields golden with a harvest of food. But he adds, When this is gone, I must starve. Boundless possibility bound up in a terrible fate! Corn enough for a possibility; but he has no soil, no soil to give this possibility reality. Soil is mere dirt. It is the refuse and so-called waste of the ages, the last thing, were it not for opposite teaching, we should look to for possibility. But it is this very soil that life is seeking — seeking that it may there find its opportunity to burst into a fuller life. And we, you and I, are only soil, dust, accumulation and remnant of six thousand years, the waste and relic of the ages. But even so we are soil, and thus a place for the seed of life, a place where God may burst into unbounded possibilities. This is the lesson of the parable of the sower. Some seed fell by the wayside, and the fowls devoured it — the seed found no soil; some seed fell upon stony places, where there was little earth (soil), sprang up, but soon withered away, because there was no soil for growth; some seed fell among thorns, — there was soil for thorns, but none for seed, — and the seed was choked out; but some seed fell on good ground, and brought forth fruit, thirty, sixty, a hundredfold. Little as we may think ourselves, let us not regard ourselves as less than this — soil for the seed of God. It is soil for which God is seeking, and He is seeking only for soil. Our lives are small and insignificant; but because they are soil, He asks for them. And He asks for them because otherwise we would not think them worth offering. The disciples would not have thought of the small store of food, had not Christ asked, "How many loaves have ye?" So we would not think that of ourselves could come any good thing, were it not that God asks, What have ye? And by every means in His power He pleads with us to give Him this little, that out of it He may make much.