“When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat? And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do” (John 6:5-6).

In business one of the worst things that can happen is to be “out of stock”. This is a retail term that comes from the moment when the shelf is empty. If a shelf is empty because there is no product, then there won’t be sales and somewhere a consumer is unhappy. Out of stock issues can come from both problems and opportunities. Problems that cause us to miss production and fulfillment demands can be fixed and are typically identifiable and with some better planning and execution not happen again. There are also times when the product is in such high demand that we just can’t keep up. We can be fooled into believing that this is a good problem, but not really. If we miss the momentum wave and then lose the curiosity or interest of the consumer then we run the risk of never getting them back. Staying in stock, staying up to date (if running a service), and staying ahead to never go out of stock is a set of planning and operational skills that need to be resident in an organization.

In our own lives we also can feel like we are running “out of stock”. These can be times when our emotional stock is low, our energy stock is depleted, our relationship strength is faltering, or our confidence level is emptying. As believers we never need to worry about God allowing us to run out of stock. When the Disciples were faced with not enough food to feed the multitudes, it wasn’t just about being out of stock with food, it was also about their reputation and the their duties to Jesus being held accountable. From the outside looking in it probably looked like there had been poor planing and someone should have thought ahead to plan for the feeding of this many people. But, when that didn’t happen and the Disciples had nothing else to fall back on, Jesus was right beside them with the answer and the solution. Now, He had to say it a few times and then prove it to them, but they finally got it and taught us a lesson. That lesson today is that if we truly believe and have a strong enough faith, then we never need to worry about running “out of stock”.

Reference: John 6: 5-6