It's Ok To Be Alone

"Then John's disciples came to take his body and bury it. And they went to bring the news to Jesus. On hearing this, Jesus set out secretly by boat for a secluded place." - Matthew 14:12-13

Do you feel like you just want to be alone? Away from everyone and everything? You just don't want to deal with anything and you need your own space to get through whatever is going on in your head. When people see us get this way, their first reaction is usually to discourage us from being alone. They want to invite us out thinking we shouldn't sulk in our problems. I personally feel that we absolutely need to sulk from time to time. It's ok to be alone. And that's what Jesus did so many times. One thing people tend to put aside is that Jesus is human too. He hurt inside when bad things happened. Things disappointed Him. Things knocked the wind right out of Him. In the passage above, Jesus hears that John the Baptist, His cousin, had been murdered. How do you think Jesus felt? Is it any easier because He was God? No, don't think for a second that it was. It hurt Him deeply. He felt the same pain we feel, the disbelief, the feeling like we just can't breathe, sleepless nights. Jesus felt all of it. And what made it worse was that if John the Baptist was murdered, Jesus knew He would be next. Imagine the fear that entered His heart and mind at this point!

So what did Jesus do? He left to a solitary place all by Himself. He pulled away from everyone because He was depressed, sad, angry, scared, all of it. As a normal, healthy human being Jesus needed His own time to straighten it all out and get Himself together, so it's ok if we do the same.

But this is healthy only for a certain amount of time. When Jesus reached the shore on His boat, He found that crowds had followed Him there and He felt compassion for them. He took His time to be on His own to mourn and think things out, but at the end of the day, we were created for unity and among others in the presence of God is the only way to fully heal. However, until you're ready to come back out, take your time. Be like Jesus and go off to a secluded place to be by yourself. It's what Jesus would do.

Today's Prayer:
Lord Jesus, thank You for being an example to me. You lived and died so that I would have someone to look up to. Even when I want to be alone, I ask that You be my only company in getting through these tough times. In Your Name we pray, amen.

Make Straight The Paths of The Lord

"In the course of time John the Baptist appeared in the desert of Judea and began to proclaim his message, 'Change your ways, the kingdom of Heaven is near!' It was about him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said, 'I hear a voice shouting in the desert: prepare a way for the Lord; make His paths straight.'" - Matthew 3:1-3

In order for God to bless you, you need to change your heart first. John the Baptist preached so that people can "prepare a way for the Lord," by making His paths straight. Examine yourselves, if you are doing wrong in your life, God cannot enter because He does not go through twisted paths. He is holy and demands our paths to be straightened before He can walk through them. In the same way, if you have your doubts, and are closed to the message of God, do not expect God to make His way to you. Jesus did not start to preach His message of life in abundance until John the Baptist asked people to repent of their sins and confess their wrong actions. He then baptized them as a way of reconnecting them to God, and it is then that Jesus begins His ministry. Likewise, Jesus will never reveal Himself to you and do the things you need until you have come to terms with your sins and straighten the path for God to work His wonders. Neither will He manifest Himself to you if you're the type of person that expects signs and miracles before you believe.

Remember, first a call to transform our hearts was placed and then, AFTER our paths were made straight, did the Lord Jesus begin His work. We must set our hearts straight if we want the Lord to come in.

Today's Prayer:
Lord Jesus, I know that You are too holy and just to live in the heart of an unrepented sinner. Give Your mercy unto me so that I am able to change my heart and You can dwell within me. In Your Name we pray, Amen.

The Human Jesus

In Matthew 14, Jesus finds out that his cousin and prophet, John the Baptist, had been killed by Herod. Verse 13 says, "On hearing this, Jesus set out secretly by boat for a secluded place."

The first thing that strikes me about this verse is that the pain Jesus was in must have been incredible. Forget for a second that Jesus is God and think about what the human Jesus was feeling. One of His family members was jailed and killed for proclaiming the Word of God, something He himself was doing as well. This must have served as a strong reminder that His time to suffer was approaching very, very quickly. Can you imagine the fear a man feels at this news? He knew He was next. He came into this world a normal man, like you and I. He had His own fears, He had His own hopes, anxieties, worries, and dreams, just like you and I do. It's so easy to forget this when we feel that God just doesn't understand us because our problems, our sufferings are so big that there's no way He could ever help, but you are so wrong! The glory of God is that He loves us so much that He lowered Himself by becoming one of us and living a human life just like the rest of us. There's nothing you can go through that He can't understand. And probably even more so because although He is God, He never chose to avoid His pain and suffering but accepted humiliation and a death on the cross, seeing it all through with faith. Because He is God it doesn't mean that things didn't hurt Him the way things hurt us, or that God the Father lessened the embarrassment or the humiliation He faced during His last hours on Earth. As a matter of fact, when Jesus prayed in the garden before He was arrested, it says that He was so worried, so scared, that He sweated blood! He said to His disciples, "My soul is filled with sorrow even to death." How then can He not truly understand you in your sorrow?

The second thing that strikes me is Jesus' actions upon hearing the news. The verse says "secretly" and "secluded." Secretly and secluded because this world will never let us be in peace. There are demands coming at us from all angles and we are pressed for time. In the same way, so many people depended on Jesus for teaching and for healing, so He made sure He had His own time, away from everyone else to spend with God. The Son of Man, the human Jesus knew that He was in pain and He needed to be alone to be refueled by God. We have all been taught that the body and the spirit are separate. We eat food to energize our bodies, but it is through prayer and this secluded time with God that our spirits are strengthened. If you are feeling emtpy and alone right now, I guarantee it is because you have not taken the time today to be strengthened by God. Your spirit is hungry, give it nourishment.The Lord Jesus Christ has set before you a perfect example of how to act for He led an exemplary life. He came down from Heaven to show us that if He could perservere in the faith through trials and tribulations, so can we.

Today's Prayer:
Lord Jesus, thank You for having come down from Heaven to share in our pain and suffering. You are my rock and with my eyes set on You and Your life, I know I can overcome all adversity by being strengthened by You. In Your Name we pray, Amen.