When A Little Dab’ll Do Us!

Maybe you’ve heard it before, but it’s worth hearing again. A grandmother took her three-year-old into her lap and began reading to her in Genesis. After a while she noted the little girl was unusually quiet and still, Grandma asked, “Well, what do you think of it, dear?” Wide-eyed, the little girl exclaimed, “I love it! You never know what God is going to do next!” Jesus’ disciples must have felt that way at times after they witnessed Him do a miracle that reminded them He was God in the flesh!

Matthew 14:13-21 relates an incident that may have been such a time.
Jesus is trying to take a day off after hearing the news of Herod’s egregious execution of John the Baptist. He sought out a “deserted place by Himself.”
But the crowds followed Him, and what was intended to be a day of rest and reflection became a pressure-packed day of healing and helping a huge crowd. “When it was evening” the Bible relates that Jesus’ disciples, no doubt worn out from helping others, came to Jesus saying, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food” (vs 15).

Verse 21 tells us, “Now those who had eaten were about five thousand men, besides women and children.” Surely, then, the disciples must have been shocked earlier when the Lord rejected their bid to send the needy crowd away, telling them instead, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat” (vs 16). Talk about never knowing what God will do next! Likely upwards of fifteen thousand people dropped in unexpectedly on Jesus and kept hanging around, looking for help and healing, until it is now supper time – and not a Subway or McDonald’s or Chic Filet anywhere in sight! What disciple reading these words has not at one time or another felt like Jesus’ disciples when they say, “Send them away. Let them fend for themselves.” Verse 17 reveals all they could scrape up in a crowd of thousands was “five loaves and two fish.” Sounds like a lot of crowds today – they came looking to get, not to give!

It is precisely at this point we learn that there are times when “a little dab’ll do ya!” That phrase was made popular in a 1950's Brylcreem hair treatment commercial aimed at men. A catchy little ditty kept repeating “Brylcreem, a little dab’ll do ya!” That phrase can have application to the incident before us in Matthew 14 and to the Lord’s people today! We live in a world bursting with human need. World population stands at over seven billion people, and all of them hunger at one level or another. The hunger can be physical or mental or social or emotional. And every sane person of accountable age has a soul-hunger and a need for forgiveness only Christ and His gospel can fill. The church faces a daunting task. Needs and problems seem to go way beyond all the time, treasure, energy and even the compassion we humanly have to give. What in the world can we do?

Matthew 14:17 reveals the answer! Concerning the five loaves and two fish, Jesus told His tired, overwhelmed, frustrated disciples, “Bring them here to me.” They did, and if you’ll take time to read you will see that little dab was enough – when they put it in the hands of Christ! He blessed it and broke it – and gave it back to them – and it filled thousands, with twelve baskets-full left over! A little dab’ll do us? Yes it will – when we surrender what we have to Christ, allow Him to bless it, and then do what we can! Let us take Christ, the Bread of life, to our hungry world.

-- by Dan Gulley, Smithville, TN