When Jesus and his disciples had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret, and moored to the shore. And when they got out of the boat, immediately the people recognized him, and ran about the whole neighborhood and began to bring sick people on their pallets to any place where they heard he was. And wherever he came, in villages, cities, or country, they laid the sick in the market places, and besought him that they might touch even the fringe of his garment; and as many as touched it were made well.
-St. Mark 6:53-56
As the people saw more and more the things Jesus did – the miracles, the cures, the wise teaching – so increasingly they gathered around Him. Just before this passage from St. Mark’s gospel He had invited His apostles to withdraw with Him and rest for a while, just to have a break from the needs of the crowd.
But no sooner had Jesus landed on the other side of the sea, than once again He was surrounded by throngs of people. When we consider it from a purely human point of view, it must have been somewhat exhausting, since everyone who came, came because they wanted something from Him.
Of course, it’s understandable that people should come to Jesus to get things from Him, because there is so much that only He can give. But it can become habitual constantly to take and only rarely to give in return.
We need to take great care about that when it comes to our relationship with God. If we’re not careful, we can tend to treat God rather like a restaurant server, expecting Him to see to our needs as they arise, and in the way we want. It’s too easy for us to fall into the habit of presenting what we feel are our needs to God and then expecting God to respond accordingly.
Surely, it would give great joy to our Lord if, more often, we came to Him to offer our love, our service, our devotion – and less often simply to demand from Him.