Consider the miraculous feeding of the thousands we find in the Christian Scriptures. The conversation goes something like this. The disciples are concerned that the people are hungry and approach Jesus. Jesus’s response is brilliant: “Well, give them something to eat!” The disciples are still thinking with the mind of the market economy and cannot possibly conceive of how to hit up the local Walmart and feed all these people… “That would take eight month’s wages!” How in the world could they possibly afford to feed these people? Jesus’s response (again, characteristically brilliant)… he asks them: “What do you have?” All they have is a meager offering of a little kids sack lunch – some fish and chips. But he is willing to give everything he has. So Jesus takes it and adds a little Godstuff.
And he proceeds to take the meager offerings of a little kid’s lunch to feed the entire crowd of thousands… and, when it’s all said and done, there are leftovers. The unmistakable lesson is that God will take whatever we have if we offer it with open hands and a willing heart – and God will use it to work miracles, feed thousands, change the world.
We are the ones God is waiting on. When we throw our hands up at God and inquire “why do you allow this injustice!?”… we have to be ready for God to toss the same question back to us. We have a God that chooses to need us. We have a God who doesn’t want to change the world without us.