The observation that if anything can go wrong, it will, has a long genesis. From the Wikipedia, with elaborations.
Mathematician Augustus De Morgan wrote on June 23, 1866:[2] “The first experiment already illustrates a truth of the theory, well confirmed by practice, what-ever can happen will happen if we make trials enough.” In later publications “whatever can happen will happen” occasionally is termed “Murphy’s law,” which raises the possibility—if something went wrong—that “Murphy” is “De Morgan” misremembered (an option, among others, raised by Goranson on American Dialect Society list).
American Dialect Society member Bill Mullins has found a slightly broader version of the aphorism in reference to stage magic. The British stage magician Nevil Maskelyne wrote in 1908: I
t is an experience common to all men to find that, on any special occasion, such as the production of a magical effect for the first time in public, everything that can go wrong will go wrong. Whether we must attribute this to the malignity of matter or to the total depravity of inanimate things, whether the exciting cause is hurry, worry, or what not, the fact remains.
The contemporary form of Murphy’s law goes back as far as 1952, as an epigraph to a mountaineering book by John Sack, who described it as an “ancient mountaineering adage”:
Anything that can possibly go wrong, does.
Fred R. Shapiro, the editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, has shown that in 1952 the adage was called “Murphy’s law” in a book by Anne Roe, quoting an unnamed physicist:
he described [it] as “Murphy’s law or the fourth law of thermodynamics” (actually there were only three last I heard) which states: “If anything can go wrong, it will.
Now, what does this engineering metaphor have to do with the Bible?
The drowd changed Jesus’ plans. The context is that Jesus had just heard of the death of John the Baptist. He wanted to withdraw. But the crowd found him in the desert. Which is why he fed them after preaching to them and healing them: the same compassion that led him to do the first led him to do the second.
Jesus and his disciples had planned to spend time in the desert: they had food and shelter. They knew what they were doing. THe crowds had… nothing.
13Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself. But when the crowds heard it, they followed him on foot from the towns. 14When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and cured their sick. 15When it was evening, the disciples came to him and said, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is now late; send the crowds away so that they may go into the villages and buy food for themselves.” 16Jesus said to them, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” 17They replied, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” 18And he said, “Bring them here to me.” 19Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. 20And all ate and were filled; and they took up what was left over of the broken pieces, twelve baskets full. 21And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.
Now, we cannot assume, in this life, that there will be a miracles. Miracles, by definition are rare: we do not consider the usual as a miracle but as the usual run of things. In addition, we can expect that things will go wrong, at times horribly wrong.
Wise people build redundancy and safety factors into the systems of their lives and work to deal with tiredness, jet lag, illness and (locally) the Fohn wind (Northwester) which makes people as miserable as exam season does (which is also upon us at present). But the crowd had come too far from their base to see Jesus. And Jesus did work miracles. in his compassion.
Another way of saying this is that it is not about how you feel, but the consequences of what you do. You can feel totally unspiritual and decaffeinated (Which is this blog writer). But you do what you need to. You use the disciplines: you build into your life the things that you need to do, so you will survive.
The miracle we need, however, is the one the crowd sought, and the one David Prayed for. Bread is good, salvation is better.
6. You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
11 Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.
12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.