Written By Ben Dankaka
Meditation – Mark 6:34
On one occasion, Jesus took his disciples to a solitary place because they needed some rest. The apostles had just concluded one of their assignments. After reporting to Jesus, all they had done, many more people kept coming to them and the disciples could not even create time to eat. To rescue the disciples, Jesus decided to take them to a quiet place where they could have some time-out. They boarded a boat and quietly left. But before they got to their destination, the same people that they were running away from recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and even got to the solitary place ahead of Jesus and the disciples. When Jesus landed and saw the large crowd, he pitied them because they were like sheep without a shepherd. In other words, Jesus had compassion on them because He realized they needed to be guided. At that instant, Jesus realized there was a shortage of leadership.
How did Jesus tackle the problem? According to the scriptures, as soon as Jesus realized that the people were like sheep without a shepherd, “he began teaching them many things” (Mark 6:34). Notice that Jesus didn’t address the leadership problem by sharing money to the crowd. He didn’t try to empower them by sharing bags of foodstuffs or by giving them material possessions. Also, Jesus didn’t try to solve the problem by blaming anyone. He didn’t ask them to go home and find “shepherds”. Instead, Jesus immediately began to teach them. Why did Jesus teach the people at that moment? Of all things, Jesus concluded that imparting knowledge was the best way to empower the people. Although they needed some fish, Jesus decided that teaching the people how to fish was more important. To empower others, teach them!
Prayer: Dear Jesus, teach me how to empower others. Amen.
REFERENCES/FURTHER STUDY: Mark 6:30-34
Unless otherwise stated all scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, New International Version.