The Blessing and the Challenge | Mark 8 | Crossroads Daily

- That's right. - In what Jesus, when he's challenging his disciples, they're like, "Someone's gotta feed these people." I don't know if it's in this one, but then he's like, "Well, you do it." Like, why, and it's just easy to only look at the blessing side of things, but it's like an order for that blessing to happen often and less God just miraculously shows up with something, someone has to deny themselves and lay down their life for the blessing to occur. (beeping) - This is the Crossroads Daily. No experts, no perfect people, just honest conversations about what happens when the Bible shows up in real life. (upbeat music) - Welcome to Crossroads Daily, my name's Caleb. - I'm Chris. - I'm Vivian. - And we are back. - With Mark. - We're back. - With Mark. - Love Book of Mark. - Mark chapter eight. Lots of, again, 'cause there's Mark, lots of amazing stuff. It's fireworks left and right. - Yeah, they need to make a Mark movie. - I mean, it would be-- - Should have sung the one happens in Mark.

- Yeah, it would be great. Yeah. - Need to work on that title though. - Mark. - Mark wouldn't. (laughing) - Mark maybe, I'll give you to the theater. - Yeah. - So two big things happening in Mark chapter eight, if you've read it or if you haven't, no big deal. At the beginning of Mark chapter eight, Jesus feeds 4,000 people. 4,000 people hanging out, no food, the disciples are stressed and Jesus feeds them. He multiplies some bread and fish. Very similar to what he did with 5,000 people, a couple of chapters earlier. So we're start there, right? These people showed up not expecting food and Jesus gave them food. They gave them a blessing. That's one of the things that Jesus does, one of the things that God doesn't in our life is he just blesses us with good stuff, big and small. So, and I'll put you on the spot, but what's the first thing that comes to mind when you think about something that God has blessed you with recently? - I mean, speaking of food, I think the biggest sign that God exists

and that He loves us is that food tastes good. - Oh, that's good. - That may not be the biggest reason that God exists. - But it's a good one. - But I mean-- - Versus eating mush every day. - Everything could just taste like tree bark, but it doesn't. - It's true. - It tastes amazing. A lot of things taste amazing. And this past weekend, I was up at my parents' house and my mom made her my favorite dish, which is Cajun Gumbo. - Oh, yeah. - It's the best thing ever. And my mom is just such a servant. Like it was her birthday or the weekend and she unexpectedly showed-- - The season for you on her birthday? - Like, her mom's do. - Oh, yeah. - I was like, this is not how this is supposed to work, but she's the best and the gumbo is delicious. And it was just, yeah, that's like food tastes good and that's just awesome. 'Cause it did not have to. It could've just been nutrition for us to survive, but it tastes good, so. - It'd be like a cow eating grass every day. - Exactly, yeah. - Very boring food.

- Yeah, yeah. Love you, mom. - Thank you. - That's awesome. - Well, I would say a blessing for me, kind of hard left. I have three kids, three adult kids, and they all live in the same city that I live in. - Awesome. - And I realized that I could take that for granted because not everybody has that. And one of my kids recently was going through a job change and I was like, oh no, oh no, is this gonna mean? And God's blessing was he got an offer, it is remote. And so my kids are all three, couldn't be in the same city. Yeah, I recognize at some point they'll probably move away, at least one of them if not all three, but for now, it's an opportunity. - Yeah, seriously. Yeah, that's a big deal. Mine's laughter. Saturday night, I got to go see a friend of mine, shout out to Zach who does stay in the party. - Yes, yes, he did a special. - He did a special friend of the pod. - You see him on the pod, probably Zach Weicke, he recorded a comedy special on Saturday night. It was hilarious, I mean, of course it was, 'cause Zach's hilarious, but man, I mean, it spent an hour just laughing and then went and got pizza with my wife.

Like, not a better day, you know? Like, there is not a better day, it was awesome. And kind of like you were saying about food, like, laughter's just a gift. Man, you can have it anywhere, right? You can laugh anywhere, just makes you feel better. And for it. So God gives us good things, but he's also like not Santa Claus, right? It's not just pulling, it's not just pulling great things out of a bag. Like blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing. There's also challenge in it, right? So we see it in the same chapter. So at the very end of the chapter, Jesus is talking to a crowd, not just to his disciples, he's talking to a crowd. And he says, in verse 34, if anyone wants to be my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. So we've gone from like, it's a buffet of bread, everything's awesome to Jesus being like, hey, if you want to follow me, you got to pick up the thing that brings your death, the cross and deny yourself, put yourself last and come follow me. So God blesses us, absolutely, he's a good father and he sharpens us, right? He makes us better, he does that through challenge. It might feel like a little friction,

it might feel like it might feel a little rough, maybe not even, doesn't have a bow on it yet. That's fine. Where's God sharpening you? - I mean, that phrase deny yourself is crazy in 2026. Like every commercial thing being targeted at us is like do anything to get anything. Like deny yourself is the last possible thing that we should be doing if you live in America, especially in 2026. And so that challenge alone is time warping. Like it feels crazy. For me, I feel like God has called me to be a better friend to people within the last year or so. And I feel like I've been blessed with a ton of friendships and the irony of it is I feel like I wrestle on the end of like actively, proactively reaching out because I feel like I've had great friends who have reached out to me first. That's how the hangouts happen. That's how we've gotten to be so close. And I feel like I've noticed like I've relied on their good friendship and blessing of me to sustain the friendship and not been the one that's reaching out. And so I think a lot of times in the past year, I've been pushed to lay down my eager pride or the selfishness that comes like, well, they should be reaching out to me or the uncomfortability that comes with asking someone

to meet up or hang out. And so I feel like I've been trying to lay that down and just proactively pursue friendship, which it feels like is, I mean, in the first story of the feeding the 4,000, in order to be blessed, someone has to deny our sacrifice in which he is like, when he's challenging his disciples, they're like, someone's got to feed these people. I don't know if it's in this one, but then he's like, well, you do it. Like, it's like, and it's just, it's easy to only look at the blessing side of things, but it's like in order for that blessing to happen often and less God just miraculously shows up with something someone has to deny themselves and lay down their life for the blessing to occur. - That's right, yeah. Yeah, when Vivian, you can probably help me with this, okay? As a mom of three and you made it through. - I did. - I'm still in the city. - Are we ever wanna do it again? - Thank you. One of the places that God is challenging me is, I love to work and I will just, I will work and I will work really hard and I can come home and have like nothing left, right? And specifically, laundry, if you're a parent, I have three kids, it's like you never get to the bottom of the pile, right? I literally folded like four piles of laundry last night

and I'm like, how do we still have laundry? This doesn't make any sense. And God is pushing on me like, serve your family, right? Where you don't get a paycheck, where you don't get accolades, where you won't like climb a chart or get a promotion or something, right? That type of service and the nine yourself and in some ways picking up across, I mean, laundry's not dying, right? There's much worse. But I would rather be watching TV or running or reading or doing something that I would like. Yeah, that's the way they got sharpening me. - That's good. Go ahead. - I was gonna say, I mean, that's not sexy either to be like grinding at something like that. Like no one is going to know whether you did the laundry or not outside of your family and committing to something like that. - Your friends, you smell their clothes. - Right. (laughing) So maybe people do know that, right? (laughing) And the reality that that is something between you and God where you're like, I'm choosing to deny myself and no one will know about this other than the four other people that live in my house

with me, the lake. I'm gonna lay down my life and do this even if it's a miniscule laying down of life. - Yeah. - Thanks, man. - Yeah, I'm a multitasker and I like to have a lot of things going on. And I think the way God's sharpening me, which actually requires me to lay down things, is being focused with people. And that's focused with God, but it's also focused with people around me because I wanna pick up the phone. I wanna do other things while I'm talking to them or whatever, and I found that God's saying, no, full attention, set stuff down. And that's having to deny a curiosity or desire, oh, I could just do this thing. It's a discipline and I will say I fail miserably a lot, but I feel like I'm slowly making better progress at trying to do that with God and with other people. - So I need you to teach me. So what are you doing to be more focused? I'm like, oh, screw it. - Well, I'll say on the phone thing, I actually, I try to set it to the side, so not have it with me. And I notice it all the time because I'm going to get, and I'm like, oh yeah, I put it down over there.

Or, I think I've said this before, in the moment to focus on God. And so I'm like, okay, the buzzer will go off when my 15 minutes is done. - And that is what it is, not before. - Right. - That's great, yeah. - That's challenging. - Yeah. - I love it. Blessings and challenges, Jesus gives us both, God is doing both in your life. Here's what I want you to try to do today. Find a place that's blessing you. It could be big, it can be small, right? A blessing from God, look for it, thank Him for that. And then try to find out, where's He challenging you? And lean into that thing. It's easy to lean away from it, right? Because challenge doesn't always feel good. Challenge helps us grow. Challenge pushes our life forward and our faith forward. Look for a blessing, thank God. Find a challenge and lean into it. We'll see you next time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)