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PRAYER FOR THE WEEK
Jesus, help me find an answer when I have to stop something, but I don't feel like I'm done yet! Amen.

Jesus had taught a crowd of 5,000 people all day, and it was late. "Tell them to go home and eat," the Apostles told Jesus. "Feed them yourselves," He answered. But all they had were five loaves of bread and two fish! Jesus blessed the food and gave it to the crowd -- and suddenly, there was enough for everyone! They all ate, and there were even 12 baskets of leftovers.

Kids are rarely finished with something really interesting before they have to stop. If you're swimming, you get annoyed when it's time to get out of the pool. When a movie is over, you want to watch it all over again.

Jesus would understand that. In this week's Gospel (Luke 9:11-17), the Apostles are telling Him to stop talking with people and let them go home, but Jesus protests: "I'm not done with them yet!"

It makes sense that, even when you have to stop doing something, you usually don't want to. If something makes you happy, why wouldn't you want to keep doing it?

Adults do have a point about stopping, though. If you kept swimming and swimming until you were exhausted, it wouldn't be fun anymore -- and it would keep you from enjoying other things later, because you'd be too tired.

So, the Apostles had a point when they told Jesus, "Everyone's tired and hungry. Stop hanging out with them and tell them to go home and eat."

Sometimes, there's a middle ground between stopping right away and going on forever. Maybe you swim for five more minutes, or you make a plan to go swimming again soon.

Jesus' idea was to make sure everyone in the crowd got something to eat. They passed out the food He'd blessed, and somehow, there was enough for everyone! Then they could all stay and listen to Him more. Jesus wasn't done with them yet![[In-content Ad]]

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