His Sovereign Presence

"There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?"
 Jesus said, "Have the people sit down." Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number.  John 6:9 ESV

On Sunday afternoon, I begin to look at my calendar for the week. It often fills quickly with meetings, appointments, and study time. I look at pieces of time where I can find some rest and spend time with Amy and the kids and that time often gets replaced with something else that I feel I need to take care of. Now, I know many think I only work an hour a week, or maybe an hour and a half depending on the length of the sermon, but I actually stay pretty busy. I love most of what I get to do, meeting with others and walking through struggles, celebrating blessings, and growing in knowledge of the Lord with others, but sometimes those good things can take away from the best things.

In John 6, we see where Jesus and the disciples traveled across the sea of Galilee and a large crowd followed Him. And Jesus has compassion for the crowd and asks what they have to feed them all. Now, there are thousands of people and the disciples say it is impossible to feed them all. In fact, it seems as though they are scrambling around to gather whatever they can to try and feed some and all they come up with is a little boy’s lunch of a few pieces of bread and a couple of small fish. It seems impossible, even while their striving and scrambling to make it work it is useless. What Jesus says next is so important. He simply says “have the people sit down”. We know the rest of the story. There was more than enough for everyone, even the disciples. They all just needed to do what Jesus asked and then sit down at the feet of Jesus.

It is so very easy for all of us to fill our day and week to the point where when something comes up that upsets our schedule we panic or get overly stressed. We can even convince ourselves that busyness equals holiness and it doesn’t. Time with Jesus makes us holy. It is easy for us to neglect the goodness of simply sitting down with Jesus. Do you see how He had it all under control? He didn’t provide just enough but He provided leftovers. All the disciples had to do was follow His simple direction and then sit down with the rest of the people and rest in the presence of Jesus.
So often we overlook this gift that the Lord gives us in just sitting down in the green grass in the presence of Jesus. I believe John draws our attention to the green grass because we often overlook that. Maybe the disciples never noticed the comfort of the green grass until they all sat down and we too can do the same thing. We allow our busy day and impossible tasks to eclipse the goodness of rest in the comfort of trusting and just being with Jesus.

I want to encourage you to stop for a bit and just sit down and rest in the absolute sovereign presence of King Jesus. He has all power and control to provide and care for us and He delights in doing so. The best thing we can do is rest in the green grass at the feet of Jesus.
I love you guys and thanks for allowing me to be your pastor.