A senior policy researcher for Oxfam once said, “The world produces more than enough food to feed everyone. Meeting the calorie needs of every person living with hunger would take less than 3 per cent of today’s global food supply.” That’s an astonishing statistic. It’s a sobering thought to realise that for the millions of people who go hungry every day, the problem is not actually a food shortage. The reason that people go hungry is that we just don’t seem capable of distributing food fairly and in safety. Even if we could distribute the food fairly, the people who are going hungry couldn’t afford to buy it. Solutions to conquering hunger and starvation are elusive, but that doesn’t give us the excuse to give up.

The feeding of the five thousand is a story that’s very familiar to us all. In it we learn to trust in God. We are taught that Jesus is more than sufficient for our needs both physical and spiritual.  When Jesus instructs his disciples to take the five loaves and the two fishes and share them amongst the five thousand, he is teaching them a lesson in faith, trust and reliance. We are being told how to live our lives. We must give up our will for God’s. We must trust God to direct our lives and rely on him to know what’s best for us. When we pray “Not my will God but yours,” we are  opening up the way for God’s wisdom to replace all that  negative thinking.

Putting our trust in God however, isn’t an excuse for us to sit back expecting God to magic tonight’s tea onto the table. We still need to work to share God’s abundant provision fairly around the planet.  That might mean supporting communities in third world countries, by funding equipment or being more pro active about campaigning for fair trade deals. It might mean campaigning for peaceful solutions in war torn areas. Does God provide? God has already provided. We have food in abundance, but to save the millions of people who are struggling to believe in that abundance, we have to work with God in keeping our part of the deal.