A Desolate Place...

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed. (Mark 1:35 ESV)

But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
(Luke 5:16 NIV)

How do I find a desolate place?

I am trying so hard to make more time for prayer, and trying to understand the right way to pray.  I try early in the morning, and one of the kids always seems to wake up.  I try at night, and I can't seem to keep focused because of the fatigue.  

I know that God doesn't necessarily expect me to go out on a deserted mountain every morning to pray, but how can I make time and give myself that kind of quiet to really focus on Him?

Today I felt like He was reminding me that there are seasons in our lives for everything...and right now my season does not allow for very much alone time.  But can't I still have "moments" of desolation, even amidst the craziness of the days?  Even if but for a few seconds, I can quickly transport myself to that quiet and peaceful place and be in communion with my Heavenly Father.

I see flashes of His glory throughout my days, and need only acknowledge and thank Him for them.  I see evidence of His care and creativity in creation over and over again, like tonight as I stood at a window to draw the curtains and saw wispy pink clouds shooting across the darkening sky.  

How often do you take the time and make the time to pray?  When was the last time you blocked out all the noise and distractions to really listen to what the Lord might be saying to you?  And when He does speak, do you really pay attention to what He is saying or calling you to do, or do you brush it aside and continue on your way?  Jesus Himself made time to pray.  God's very own Son clearly made prayer a priority and sacrificed much so that His prayers were meaningful and empowering.  If He needed prayer that much, how much more is it a vital necessity for me?

Give me moments and places of desolation throughout my days, dear God, that I might be in regular communion with You.  There are competing forces constantly clamoring for my attention and devotion, but I know that none deserves the place in my life that You do.  

Love One Another...

John 13:34 (NIV)

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.

I cannot help but think of love over the course of this past week.  Daily we hear more and more news of the sadness and destruction caused by hatred which has been embedded in our country for centuries now.  I long for a solution, for an end to this kind of evil, for hope...

And whenever I am looking for hope, there is one place I can always find it, in the precious, timeless, limitless, perfect Word of God.  I think of those who wrote the words that are forever recorded in the Holy Bible and why they wrote them.  And it's not very hard to see, that the problems we face now, are not new...they were the same kinds of issues that they faced back in those days that the Bible was being recorded.

This week, my kids have had the wonderful opportunity to take care of some baby ducks.  It has been a joy to see them caring for the ducks' needs, playing with them, holding them, building their trust so they are no longer afraid when little hands come reaching for them.  I love it when, after playing for the ducks for a little while, they become so tired that they curl up and fall asleep right in the kids' hands.  

We just finished watching the first season of the series The Chosen (which I highly recommend).  In it, I felt like I was transported back to the times when Jesus walked the earth and it helped me to envision what living in those times and having a face to face encounter with Him might have been like.  As He chose His disciples, one by one, you could see that He was not choosing the elite, the beautiful, the well-respected...but those who were poor, dirty, hated and broken.  He looked for ordinary people, those that anyone could relate to.  And He never saw one group of people as better than another.  As people came to Him, asking for healing from their sicknesses, you could see a kind of sorrow in His eyes, because He knew the depth of their pain and brokenness and that they needed not only physical healing, but also healing of a much deeper nature, healing of the heart and soul.  

I hope that I might remember the love that Jesus demonstrated for us, for me, in my day to day living.  I hope that I might remember how He sought out those who were shunned by society, did not shrink away from those who were hated and unclean, but embraced them with immediate acceptance and love. Christ came for the ungodly, the unworthy, sacrificially, willingly, and lovingly.  He came, in person, so that we would have the perfect example to follow...and example of how to treat each other and how to live life together on this earth. He came to show us what it looks like to love our fellow man and woman, unconditionally and without judgment.

Give me love like Jesus, dear God.  Help me to see needs the way You see them, to see people the way You see them, (including myself!), and to love like You love.  While we were still rotten, unworthy, unsightly sinners, He came and loved and died for us.  That is an example worth following.

1 Corinthians 16:14 (ESV)

Let all that you do be done in love.

1 John 4:11

Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.