Jesus doesn’t operate according to normal circumstances. He isn’t bound by our limitations. He is the Sovereign One who transcends circumstances. He laughs in the face of circumstances that make us cringe. And so he takes the loaves and fishes, blesses them, and then begins dividing them. And dividing them. And dividing them some more.

I recently read the story where Jesus feeds 5,000 and it freshly blew me away.

Honestly, I’ve heard and read that particular story 100 times. I’ve known it since I was a child.

But as I freshly read about Jesus feeding the 5,000, I was given new eyes to see things I don’t think I had ever seen before.

Here’s what jumped out at me.

Jesus Feeds 5,000 In The Most Desolate Of Places

The passage starts by saying, “Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself” (Matthew 14:13).

Jesus wasn’t hanging out in a food court when he fed the massive crowd of people. He was in a lonely, desolate, deserted place. It was the opposite of abundant. It was sparse, thin, hardscrabble. Not a place where life flourished.

And yet it was in the desolate place that Jesus fed the great crowd (note: he actually fed more like 15,000 – 20,000; 5,000 was just the number of men). Jesus caused life and abundance and provision to bloom in the most desolate of places.

This greatly encourages me. Jesus can cause life to bloom in even the darkest, most desolate circumstances. He truly can make dead, dry, brittle bones pulse with life.

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