FEBRUARY 23 “HAD A LONG DAY?”

   Have you had a long day for Jesus? Has he spent you for all the energy that you had? If He has, then He will say to you, “I have not asked of you what I myself have not given”. Jesus had such a large crowd of people around him that He and his disciples cannot even sit down to eat. And so they endure, they get through and finally Jesus suggests that they climb into the boat and get to a place where they can get some food in their stomachs and get some well over due rest. We know that when we are being exhausted physically and deprived of food at the same time, it’s a bad combination. It can make the most pleasant among us to be quite mean, moody and ill tempered. Well, at least we can say, there’s an end to the madness, they will get to their remote location, eat and maybe laugh about the whole, crazy event. However that’s not the case, our text says, they crowd saw them in the boat and ran along the shoreline to “meet them” on the other side. Can you imagine the anger burning within these men as they watched these people run ahead to meet them at the place they were going for solitude. Enough is enough, they’re gong to see a side of Jesus now they haven’t seen, I’m sure Jesus is going to let them have it, He will send them away so we can eat and have some peace. Unfortunately, for the disciples Jesus does not send them away, Jesus went there to eat, Jesus went there to rest and now He finds himself doing nether, but teaching and praying for more people. It’s been a long day, the sun is starting to set, the disciples have had it and they approach Jesus and tell Him, “send them away!!!”. Let’s eat! What does Jesus say, “You feed them”. Here the disciples start getting snippy with Jesus, they’ve had it. “Really Jesus, really….it would take a year’s salary of wages to feed these people, just send them away! We’ve been trying to eat since early this morning. Long story short, they end up feeding 5000 plus people, imagine how exhausting that must have been and this all started with them boating to this remote location to get a-way. Now we pick up the story, it’s 3:00 am in the morning, these men still have not had a chance to lay down to sleep and on top of that, they are caught in a storm. Jesus walks out on the water, steps into the boat, the storm calms and when they get to the shore guess what.........,.more people waiting to be ministered too.

At first we jump at the chance of ministry, at first we are so thrilled that we were used by Jesus, that we were able to help and minister to some needy soul, but eventually it will wear and tear on you and it will leave you exhausted. Jesus will tax us to some very long days, long weeks and we will find ourselves exhausted and saying, "I can't do this anymore". Have you had a long day for Jesus? Chances are, if you have signed up for “the ministry” you have had some very long days, days that were longer and harder than you think you can endure and as you begin to complain and gripe to God about your long day, remember the day Jesus had in our text today and this was just one of many that He would have. If we try to do this on our own strength we will falter. We will quit the ministry. We must find ways to be replenished by Jesus, we must find ways to rest and be fed and we must cry out to God, "give me supernatural strength to do the work that you have called me to do, because I am exhausted and cannot go another day." If we will be honest with God, if we will cry out to Him, He will replenish us and He will give us divinely orchestrated moments of rest and peace and it is up to us to have the wisdom to see and seize, those opportunities, as they come. Have you had a long day? Jesus says, "I know how you feel!"