“I am unwilling”

As Christians, the obvious goal is to be more like Christ. Spiritually, theologically, grammatically, it’s all there.

What’s less obvious sometimes is how.

When Jesus fed the four-thousand—the ones who had been following him for three days—it was preceded by a famous question he posed to his dumbfounded disciples: How much food do you have?

They answer (‘Uhh, not much‘). And he goes on to feed the masses with 1 meal and 3,999 miracles.

And these are all critical parts of the story because they glorify God.

But when it comes to his instructions, to us, on how we replicate that scenario (i.e. how we follow Christ), the three words Jesus first said about the crowd matter most.

“I am unwilling,” he said “to send them away hungry” (Matthew 15:32).

What’s especially interesting here is that most of this mass weren’t believers. They were following for the same reason everyone else was. Jesus was an incredible novelty.

And, being God and all, he knew their motives.

Yet, still, he was driven by compassion for those in need.

And in some ways, that seems like the bigger miracle.