Luke 5: 15-16 Yet the news about Him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.
Nearing the end of Vietnam I became exhausted in all senses of the word. Selfishly as our hug campaign ended I thought, ‘how wonderful would it be if I could walk down the street and not have to smile at people or talk to them or see if they need help. How freeing and relaxing would it be if I could walk down the street and think about me. Only me.’ How selfish.
Even though I was so exhausted I could not skip ministry. It wasn’t an option in my mind. I had to see my girls. I needed to hug them one more time, to smile at them and tell them how much I love them. When would I ever have the chance again? Also I didn’t want to feel any guilt. So what if I’m tired, it’s not like I’ve done that much and anyways, isn’t ministry the reason I came?
A couple times people reminded me of the verse about how Jesus took time to be alone and pray. So today, instead of reading only verse 16 I decided to read the verse before it which I think is equally as important as the second. It proposes something that seems ludicrous to my earthly mind.
News about Jesus spread like wildfire. Even more crowds than before came to see Him, to hear Him, to be healed by Him. These were people who desperately needed Jesus, who desperately wanted His touch, His healing. Was it that important for Jesus to be alone? So important that people might not get to hear the news He delivered or to feel the love he offered or even healed from their diseases?
For Jesus to give up all those opportunities shows us how important it really is because you can bet your bottom dollar that Jesus wasn’t doing it to be selfish. Love is not self seeking.
So what does that mean for me? For you? I’m surrounded by people from all over the world. The people, I came to see. I might not have crowds following me everywhere but this year is all about finding the crowds or even just that one person to touch. Maybe for you you’re finding that there isn’t enough time in the day to bless all the people that need blessing and you can’t think why one person deserves to be blessed more than another. Or maybe there are so many needs at your church and not enough volunteers so more and more tasks keep getting piled on your plate and you feel guilty about saying no.
Sometimes I feel bogged down, hopeless and depressed thinking about how much need there is on this earth. By how many people there are that need to be loved and fed. How could I ever reach all of them? Even if I worked 24/7 to help other people I wouldn’t even make a dent in the billions so how can I justify taking time off to be alone? There is no time in the schedule for that and I can’t rely on other people to pick up my slack.
But maybe reaching everyone isn’t the point. What if schedules and numbers and stats were hindering us rather than helping? What if it wasn’t all just about other people but part of it was about the growth that comes with it? What if we stopped focusing on what we can do and started focusing on what God can do? And what if we stopped using our strength and used God’s instead?
How can a car run without gas? It can’t. No problem, we’ll go fill it up. It’s such a simple concept yet rarely applied to our spiritual lives. So what if we went one step further and filled up ourselves before we become empty so that we have more to give and farther to go without completely exhausting or damaging ourselves.
One day at a time. Creation wasn’t finished in a day. Could it have been? Probably. God can do whatever He wants but I believe that He did it that way for us. He knows us. He knows how our human bodies work. One day at a time. At the end of the day it doesn’t say He was busy thinking about what He was going to do next. One day at a time. And then on the seventh day He rested. I think too often we think we have to figure it out on our own, that there’s some secret formula. I think there is a secret formula and I think Jesus lived it.
Ludicrous? To the world. Maybe even to Christians it seems like a misuse of time. We’ll never understand all the mysteries of this world and that’s kind of exciting. However we make it a lot harder than it needs to be when we don’t do those ludicrous things. Take a chance, get messy and make mistakes! (Magic School Bus anyone?). We’re taught to lead by example but maybe we need to start living by example. Jesus’ example. He didn’t come to this earth for the heck of it and I believe dying for us wasn’t the only message He wanted to get across. He lived His life as an example for us to follow. Jesus also needed direction, strength, wisdom and words of encouragement from His Father and we do even more so. The more He gives us, the more we have to give. So go ahead, take a break, have a kit kat. Good news, He has the rest under control!
