What Jesus Did! 'Orderly and Miraculous' — Luke 9:14-16

For those of us who have read this story, we often miss a bizarre element because of our familiarity. Jesus went about his task in such an orderly and planned way. Then, right in the middle of executing his orderly plan, he interjected the miraculous. It is like the creation story in Genesis 1, told with order and precision. Then you look at what was really happening with this crowd of people, and it was simply miraculous beyond our understanding. We don't often put the "bean counter" side of things in the same context as the "holy hand waver" side of things. We tend to segment people into the empirical, orderly, and predictable category OR the emotional, expressive, and excitable sort. However, the Lord brought both together with a prayer of blessing to provide a picnic for over 5,000. This story is a powerful reminder of our need for both types of approaches and both types of people. It is also an even more powerful reminder that we need to be open to both approaches in the same event or group and respectful of both. God brings order out of chaos and provides his blessing out of potential disaster, and he does it in an orderly and miraculous way.