I Kings 8:56

What a task lay before the Lord on that day! There were five thousand men, besides women and children. To feed such a crowd at a moment’s notice might well-nigh seem impossible. Well might the disciples say, “Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food” (v. 15). Well might they look startled when the reply came back. “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” Their hearts must have sunk within them as their eyes again and again scanned that surging crowd.

The prospect of feeding that multitude did not alarm the Lord. He asked Philip, indeed, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” (John 6:5) but we learn immediately that He said this “to test him” (v. 6). The Lord Jesus is perfectly confident that He can meet our needs and He would have us confident, too; for He is the One who for thousands of years has met the needs of those who put their trust in Him. As the God of providence He keeps the barrel of meal from wasting, and the cruse of oil from failing. He draws from one the testimony: “I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread” (Psalm 37:25). And from another, “Not one word has failed of all the good promises he gave” (1 Kings 8:56).

Someday we will understand that God has a reason behind every no He gives us through the course of our lives. Yet even in this life, He always makes it up to us. When God’s people are worried and concerned that their prayers are not being answered, how often we have seen Him working to answer them in a far greater way! Occasionally we catch a glimpse of this, but the complete revelation of it will not be seen until later.

If God says yes to our prayer, dear heart, And the sunlight is golden, the sky is blue, While the smooth road beckons to me and you, And songbirds are singing as on we go, Pausing to pick the flowers at our feet, Stopping to drink of the streams that we meet, Happy, more happy, our journey will grow, If God says yes to our prayer, dear heart.