²⁹ Jesus left there and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. ³⁰ Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. ³¹ The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.

³² Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I have compassion for these people; they have already been with me three days and have nothing to eat. I do not want to send them away hungry, or they may collapse on the way.”

³³ His disciples answered, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?”

³⁴ “How many loaves do you have?” Jesus asked.

“Seven,” they replied, “and a few small fish.”

³⁵ He told the crowd to sit down on the ground. ³⁶ Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn to the people. ³⁷ They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. ³⁸ The number of those who ate was four thousand men, besides women and children. ³⁹ After Jesus had sent the crowd away, he got into the boat and went to the vicinity of Magadan.

Dear God, Matthew treats the disciples better than Mark does in the telling of the feeding stories. Mark (which some say is Peter’s version of the Gospel in his telling it to Mark) tends to make the disciples sound a little whiney as they look for excuses to send the people away. In Matthew’s telling, however, they just seem to be a little confused as to how Jesus is going to pull this off.

Being a dad has been the biggest challenge of my life so far. I not nearly as good at it as I thought I would be. I have found that I can be too critical and not encouraging enough. I can also focus on the wrong things as priorities for them. For example, (and I’m going to be intentionally vague here to protect their privacy) there is one character trait that one of them doesn’t have that has really bugged me. I have been totally unsuccessful in trying to bring this trait out no matter what I try. At the same time, I am still praying to you regularly for this child and how they will develop. Well, yesterday, I read an article about some kids who respond incorrectly when they have this trait and it ends up causing another completely different problem. Frankly, I’ve seen a propensity in this child to possibly develop this problem, and in reading the article that if I had been successful in bring this trait out in my child then they might be going down this other road. In essence, I left the article wondering if you hadn’t done my child a huge favor by not answering my prayers in the way I wanted.

Father, much like the disciples didn’t know how you would end up feeding those people, I don’t know how you will eventually work in my children’s lives. All I know is that my deepest heart’s desire is for them to submit themselves to you and love you. All else is irrelevant when compared with that. So please help my children through me and in spite of me. Multiply the fish and the loaves that I try to give them into something that you can use in their lives. Use others in their lives as well. Raise up people through whom you will counsel them and bless them. Unite my wife and me together in our parenting. Unite us in every other way too.