Do What You Can

One Sunday I preached a sermon on the feeding of the 5,000 in Mark 6. In it, I said the power of Jesus had made two fish and five loaves more than sufficient to feed a very large crowd. But my main point was that the disciples only had two fish and five loaves when Jesus told them,
“You give them something to eat.” Before Jesus would do what he eventually did, he wanted the disciples to do what they could, insufficient though it was.

A few days after that sermon, I went to see a woman who was in the hospital because of a fall and a broken hip. Her other health concerns made this a very serious situation.

I listened as she told me what had happened and what the doctors were telling her. I read to her assurances from Scripture and prayed for her.

As I stood to leave, she began to weep as she struggled to say one more thing. It was clearly something important and perhaps what she most needed to say. I waited, then she said, “Pastor, I almost died…I’m afraid…Pastor Mike…I’m so afraid.”

Do what you can, and then trust God to make it sufficient and maybe even extravagant. 

In that moment I wanted the Holy Spirit to fall on me and give me the ability to take away her fear. I wanted to grab that fear by its throat, take it with me, and throw it in a trash can as I walked out of that hospital.

But I didn’t know how to do that and so I felt very small in the shadow of her fear. I thought to myself, What am I going to do for her? What am I going to say to her?

I did what I could. I spoke to her of God’s faithful presence. I reassured her that God was okay with her fear. I asked her to imagine fear gripping her left hand but that God had a stronger grip on her right hand and that God would lead her through the darkness of her fear.

As I said those words, they felt true. But they also felt meager. They felt like two fish and five loaves.

Did my words help her? I don’t know. In that moment, they were all I had and all I could do. It was up to the grace and sovereignty of God to make my words sufficient.

As I drove home, Sunday’s sermon on the feeding of the 5,000 came to mind. I remembered that I had preached that God expects us to do something about the needs of others. Statements like “I don’t know what to do” or “I can’t solve the problem” do not diminish or rescind God’s expectation that we do what we can, that we “give them something.”

I believe God does not expect us to do what we cannot, but he fully expects us to do what we can.

In Mark 14 a woman anoints Jesus with extravagantly expensive perfume. Some criticized her harshly, saying she had done a wasteful thing. Jesus defends her. “Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done what she could” (vv. 6, 8, NIV).

Do what you can, and then trust God to make it sufficient and maybe even extravagant. May it be that Jesus will say of me, of you, “You have done what you could.”