Devotion - Thursday, January 31

Most of us are familiar with the events referred to as "the feeding of the 5,000."  When this story is told in Mark, Chapter 6, it is preceded with a comment on Jesus' motivation.  

Jesus sees the crowd, and "he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd."

I hope is it not offensive to you if I point to this verse as the tag line for the work I do among you.  We are all too often like sheep without a shepherd.  We struggle to accomplish even the simplest of tasks; we stumble in the darkness looking for the light; and our hearts are burdened with worries about what we will eat and what we will wear.

But we have a shepherd.  We need not wander.

The presenting characteristic of this shepherd is his attitude toward us.  "Compassion."  We are not a burden, we are not despised, we are not the means to a paycheck.  Compassion.

The feeding of the 5,000 is in every Gospel account.  There is an urgency to tell the story of how present is God's compassion and willingness (let's rename it eagerness) to feed us and help us find our way home.