Human Instrumentality

“And He took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to His disciples, and the disciples to the multitude” — Matt. xv. 36.

And so there are secondary causes in the spiritual as well as in the natural world. Christ was here breaking the bread to the multitude, but He does not give it to the multitude directly; He gives it through a medium. He puts it into the hands of the disciples and tells them to give it; the Divine blessing comes through a secular channel. So is it ever with the providence of God. He sends the bread to feed my soul, but He sends it through earthly ministers, sometimes in earthen vessels. He sends it through the laws which I call nature’s laws, through the changes which I call life’s changes, through the troubles which I call the troubles of humanity. He sends it by the most commonplace conveyances, by the most trivial incidents, by the most unlikely contingencies; I am every day, every hour, every moment in the presence of the messengers of God. Do I marvel that the ravens fed Elijah in the wilderness? I am every instant fed by emissaries as untoward as these. All the influences of life, however unpleasing, are in some sense ministering to me; even the lives that come into conflict with mine are unconsciously ministering to mine. The bread from the hands of my God reaches me through the myriad hands of men.

Lord, make me one of Thy secondary causes. I must be so with or without my will, for all things must bend to Thy Divine purpose. But it is not without my will that I desire to serve Thee. I would not be a mere mechanical agent in Thy universe, like the sun by day or the moon and stars by night; I would serve Thee voluntarily, freely, designedly. I would be the conscious distributer of Thy bread to the famished crowd, the conscious minister of Thy strength to the fainting multitude. I would take into my hands the bread which Thou hast broken, and in my turn I would break it anew. I would receive from Thee Thine own spirit of sacrifice — Thy life broken by love. I would receive from Thee Thine own human burden, the burden of sympathy with the wants and woes of man. I would receive from Thee Thy best, Thy divinest gift — the power and the will to give. Help me to give to others what Thou hast given to me. Thou hast given me Thyself. That which Thou hast broken for me is more than the bread; it is Thine own spirit. Give me that spirit of Thine to break for my brother man. Help me to lose myself for him, to forget myself in him, to hide myself in him. Let me be wounded with his wounds, afflicted with his stripes, pained with his sorrows, humiliated with his humiliation. Let me be so identified with him that there shall be one common cross between us, one common load to bear; then shall I break for him the bread Thou hast broken for me.