How a lack of trust frustrated Jesus …

One of the greatest habits people ever develop in their lives is a lack of trust in God.

It’s common to hear among leaders the idea expressed that experience is a great teacher. It can be, but truth be told, it often isn’t. We SHOULD learn from our experiences, but we often don’t. We SHOULD grow in our faith in God by experiencing His faithfulness toward us … but we often don’t.

Mark recorded just such an experience among the disciples of Jesus. In fact, if you look at this snippet of scripture, it appears that Jesus becomes frustrated with the disciples for failing to learn from their previous experiences with Him. First, let’s get the setting in Mark 8. Starting in verse 11 we read:

“When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had arrived, they came and started to argue with him. Testing him, they demanded that he show them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove his authority.”

Jesus quickly dismissed this affront from the Pharisees and wasted no time with it …

“So he got back into the boat and left them, and he crossed to the other side of the lake,” Mark 8:13.

That brings us to a an interaction with Jesus where the disciples COULD have understood, and SHOULD have not demonstrated a lack of faith — but they did.

“But the disciples had forgotten to bring any food. They had only one loaf of bread with them in the boat. As they were crossing the lake, Jesus warned them, ‘Watch out! Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and of Herod.’ At this they began to argue with each other because they hadn’t brought any bread,” Mark 8:14-16.

Instead of being dialed in with what just happened so they could understand what Jesus was saying, the disciples missed the message completely. Instead, they thought Jesus was complaining about the lack of food rations and began to argue among themselves about something that wasn’t the point at all. Demonstrated in their arguing with one another was a complete lack of faith that if Jesus had raised the issue of food, the little they had among them was more than enough if only they trusted Him. This lack of faith seems to frustrate Jesus …

“Jesus knew what they were saying, so he said, ‘Why are you arguing about having no bread? Don’t you know or understand even yet? Are your hearts too hard to take it in? You have eyes — can’t you see? You have ears — can’t you hear?’ Don’t you remember anything at all? When I fed the 5,000 with five loaves of bread, how many baskets of leftovers did you pick up afterward?’ ‘Twelve,’ they said. ‘And when I fed the 4,000 with seven loaves, how many large baskets of leftovers did you pick up?’ ‘Seven,’ they said. ‘Don’t you understand yet?’ he asked them,” Mark 8:17-21.

This is not a meek moment with Jesus, this is a sound scolding. Jesus expected His disciples to put together the basics, to observe miracle after miracle and, from that, learn that they never have a reason to panic when Jesus is present. There’s never too little when they are with Jesus! They saw and experienced for themselves how Jesus provided an abundance for thousands from next to nothing. But when they failed at grasping the most basic truth from their experience, Jesus scolded them.

He even quizzed them!

“… When I fed the 5,000 with five loaves of bread, how many baskets of leftovers did you pick up afterward?”

“… And when I fed the 4,000 with seven loaves, how many large baskets of leftovers did you pick up?”

And then He put them on the spot:

“… Don’t you understand yet?”

If they bothered to draw from their experience, they COULD have understood, but they didn’t. The disciples did what you and I can be famous for — stumbling through life without much depth of thought or connecting one experience with another. But when we do, we see no matter what comes our way, there is never a reason for panic with Jesus.

Our experiences with Christ should be building our faith and busting our habit of having a lack of it; these experiences should be deepening our trust in God and implanting in our minds and hearts a peace that comes from knowing regardless of the circumstances — especially whatever lack we face — everything will be okay because God is with us.

In the words of a popular song, little becomes much in the Master’s hand.

Have you been growing in faith the more you experience Christ? Or do you still have a habit of a lack of trust in God that would frustrate even Jesus?

Scotty