Alone but not lonely!

Luke 5:12-16

Jesus was in one of the towns when a man appeared, covered with leprosy. Seeing Jesus he fell on his face and implored him. ‘Sir,’ he said ‘if you want to, you can cure me.’ Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him and said, ‘Of course I want to! Be cured!’ And the leprosy left him at once. He ordered him to tell no one, ‘But go and show yourself to the priest and make the offering for your healing as Moses prescribed it, as evidence for them.’ His reputation continued to grow, and large crowds would gather to hear him and to have their sickness cured, but he would always go off to some place where he could be alone and pray.

Food for thought!

He would always go off to some lonely place where he could be alone and pray!

Today’s meditation will be about this fact in the life of Jesus. As you know, everything Jesus did was to teach us. Yes, that is why he is called «Teacher» or «Master», and we «Disciples» or «Learners».

Besides your home, do you have some lonely place you go to in order to be alone and to pray? In other words, do you ever pray, alone? Do you ever stay alone? Where and when? How often? If you don’t have this lonely place and moment, have it. You can’t live on high all day and all days; you cannot live as if in down town. You need to go or be by yourself, to examine YOUR life, and this can hardly be done in the market place.

The gospel says that Jesus “would always go off to some lonely place where he could be alone and pray.” This is what Jesus ALWAYS did; this is what Jesus’ followers do. Why is this good? Well, it is good because Jesus used to do it. What Jesus did is ok, is good, is worth doing. Whatever Jesus did was for our edification; was to demonstrate what humans ought to be and do.

Did you know that prayer is the only discipline of the Christian faith that we are told to do “without ceasing” (I Thessalonians 5: 17)? Our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, esteemed this matter of prayer very highly. On one occasion Jesus got up a great while before day and prayed. Mark 1: 35 states, “While it was still night, way before dawn, he got up and went out to a secluded spot and prayed.” Then on another occasion, after the disciples apparently took notice of Jesus’ prayer life, they were compelled to ask Him, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11: 1). These disciples wanted to know how to pray because they knew that there was power in prayer. And on another occasion, when Jesus Christ was in the Garden of Gethsemane before His arrest, betrayal and crucifixion, “He prayed on all the harder. Sweat, wrung from him like drops of blood, poured off his face.” (Lk 22:44). If Jesus Christ had to pray so earnestly, there is no doubt that we, His followers, ought to pray as well.

He would always go off to some lonely place where he could be alone and pray!

What about you?