Together Alone

 Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him.  Luke 9:18a  ESV

How does this even make sense?  I looked this up in a few different translations to be sure it wasn’t just nuance in the ESV.  Nope.  The verse reads similarly in each translation I read.  Apparently, Jesus really was praying alone, even though He was surrounded by His friends.

Jesus would go on to use this as an opportunity to teach and to challenge His disciples.  He never wasted an opportunity.

But still, I am confused. 

If anyone should have understood the importance of prayer, it would be these men who were with Jesus.  They were his closest friends and students.  But apparently they were not very good students.

These men had literally just seen that when Jesus prayed, a few loaves and fishes fed thousands – with leftovers!  They were witnesses to the power of prayer.

So they’re with Jesus and He’s praying.  From the context, it would seem that they’re all just sitting around watching, waiting for Him to get done.  This seems really sad to me. 

After all of the time they’d spent with Jesus… 

After all of the miracles they’d seen Him perform…

After the prayers they’d heard Him pray and the answers they’d seen…

After serving food to thousands and collecting more scraps than the meal had started with…

They didn’t understand.  At least, they didn’t understand much.

A couple of verses later in Luke 9:20, we see that Peter, at least, had a decent understanding of who Jesus really was.  But it’s not until chapter 11 that it dawns on the disciples that they need to know a little more about prayer.

I can respect this.  Sometimes you just don’t know what you don’t know.  It hasn’t occurred to you yet to ask.

But what really strikes me about Luke 9:18 is that the scripture says that the disciples were with Jesus when He was praying alone.

Alone in a crowd.

This is something that I can relate to.

I sometimes feel this way in church.  As the pastor preaches, there are moments that I feel that the words are directed just to me.  I don’t know what all of those people around me are there for, if I even remember they are there, because the message is so clearly just for me.

Then there are times – sometimes in church, or, recently, watching or listening to a sermon at home because in-person gatherings weren’t happening that day – that in a crowd or a group, I wonder why no one else seems to be hearing what I’m hearing.  I’m getting fired up, and the people around me seem to be dozing off. 

And then there are the times where I just want to be alone.  I’m pretty much of an introvert and I find time with people to be draining, so I often wish for some alone time.  As we’ve just moved from a 6,000 square foot home to a 200 square foot home, I’m struggling at times.  I do my best work – thinking, writing, etc – when I am alone. 

It’s hard to get alone in an RV.  I remember that from the road years.  In order to get anything accomplished, I often would find myself staying up late or getting up early.  Well, I’m at a point in my life where staying up late just doesn’t work.  I may stay “up” but I can’t stay awake.  And even if I could stay awake, my husband is a bit of a night owl, so nighttime doesn’t make good alone time. 

So I’m trying to get up early.  This, too, is difficult to me.  Waking up is always a struggle.  I’m not one of those people that just magically wake up at the same time every day without setting an alarm.  I have to set an alarm (or five!) even if I don’t need to get up early, because if I don’t, I will sleep to an embarrassingly late hour.  And the problem with alarms is that they don’t just wake me up – they wake others up as well.  So you see my dilemma.

Jesus had a skill that I have yet to develop.  Shocker! 

He could disconnect from His surroundings in such a way that even while He had disciples all around, He could pray alone!  Jesus also craved time alone, as we see in multiple places in scripture when He would withdraw to a desolate place or send His disciples ahead.  And yet, He was able to find the solitude He needed even in the midst of a crowd.

Perhaps that is the challenge for us all.

Life tends to be distracting.  There are often people around and stuff going on and so many things beckoning for our attention.  Sometimes it can be hard to find truly “quiet” time for a quiet time.  Perhaps you are a parent to young children who wake too early.  Maybe, like me, you’re neither morning person nor night owl, and it is difficult to find time when someone else is not around. 

You can choose what has often been my path – frustration, irritation, and excuses for not spending more time with the Lord. 

Or – and I recommend this route – you can follow the example of Jesus, and get alone with God no matter who or what is going on around you.

Get alone with God.  If you have to do it “together,” do it.  Trust me - it will be a good time!

…Just a thought…

THERE

But from there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.  Deuteronomy 4:29

There’s a lot on my mind these days.  So much is going on in my head, in fact, that I cannot recall exactly how I intended to begin this blog post.  I started out this morning, inspired.  I had an “aha” moment, skipped a space, and jumped down to expound upon the connection I discovered between Moses’ words in Deuteronomy and Jeremiah’s words in Jeremiah chapter 29.  Then I realized that I needed to get ready for church, and since then, I’ve been to church, Walmart, had lunch and a nap, worked a bit on the camper with Jeff, and now here I am, trying to remember what it was that I set out to write this morning. 

Whatever it was, it is gone.

I was getting frustrated with myself, wondering if my memory is getting faulty with age, or if it is just the nature of this season of life…  I’m going to go with the latter, because that’s really all I’m prepared to process at the moment!

So, I re-read the verse above, and I realize that perhaps THAT is the point!

“But from there…” Moses says to the children of Israel.  Where is “THERE”?

Well, here’s the background that caught me this morning:

Moses was speaking to the children of Israel as they were preparing to go into the Promised Land.  He already knew that the people were going to rebel and that they would fall into idolatry.  Moses had already been down this road with them a number of times over the years and I can imagine the sorrow that must have been in his heart at that moment. 

Moses himself would not be going with them into Canaan.  His own bit of rebellion years earlier had cost him that opportunity.  He could have been frustrated or bitter, but from the Scriptures, it would seem that he was neither.  He was concerned.  He wanted the children of Israel to be successful and he wanted a good future for them.  But he knew that they were going to do some dumb, faithless things.  So, before he left them, Moses wanted to be sure that they knew that after they fell, the Lord would still be ready to pick them back up.

And fall they did.

After years of rebellion and idol worship and failing to keep God’s commandments, the people were taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar.

Many years later, Jeremiah the prophet echoes Moses’ message as he delivers the Lord’s message to the captives:

You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.  Jeremiah 29:13

What Moses foretold was being fulfilled.  The people had rebelled, and they were held captive by a foreign nation (see Deut. 4:26-27).  What Moses had told their ancestors, Jeremiah repeated to the captives.  “When you seek the Lord, you will find Him!”

For the children of Israel, “there” was Babylon, many years later.  “There” was an uncomfortable place.  It was a place where they didn’t want to be.  They didn’t know the language.  They didn’t know the customs.  They probably didn’t want to.  This was not where they wanted to be. 

I think this is an important principle that we need to understand (that I need to understand).

Life often takes us to places and situations that are not necessarily of our choosing.  Sometimes, like the children of Israel, we face hard times due to our own poor decisions.  Sometimes we end up there because of someone else’s decisions.  HOW we got there is not the point.  THAT we got there is.  No matter how you ended up in whatever mess you may find yourself, how you got there is less of an issue than what you need to do now that you are there.  (That’s not to say that we should not learn from our mistakes, but we mustn’t dwell on the past.  We cannot change what has happened.  We can only move forward.)

I don’t know what THERE looks like for you today.  For me, it a pretty uncertain place – no job, no income, no foundation under my home (and no permanent place to park our wheels).  THERE may feel like a place from which you cannot see a way out, or where there seems to be no sense of direction.

I believe what God is saying is that this is how it should be.  Moses did not tell the children of Israel that when they found themselves THERE that they should seek a direction.  He did not tell them to look for an escape.  Jeremiah, in fact, told the captives to settle in THERE for a long wait (70 years!).

What Moses and Jeremiah told the people to seek was GOD!

They said that if the people would seek the Lord with all of their heart and soul, they would find HIM – not an escape plan, not a direction, not deliverance.  They would find GOD.

So, for me, the lesson here is pretty simple.  I need to be sure that what I am seeking in my “THERE” is God.  Just God.  Not God and a job.  Not God and a home.  Not God and stability.  Not God and anything.  Just GOD.  With all my heart and soul.

The really great promise with that is that God said He would be found.  He’s not hiding.  We really don’t have to look hard – we just have to look – FOR HIM.

The great thing is, He is all we need. 

The captives did eventually get to go home.  While they were waiting, God was able to do great things in them and through them, but He did it in the THERE.

Whatever your THERE may look like, God is there with you.  He is not hiding – He is waiting.  He is waiting for you to stop seeking stuff, and start seeking Him.  When you seek, you will find.  That’s good news!

…Just a thought…