Mark 6:31 “The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.” This episode is about how important it is to rest in the silence of the Lord. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Spend Time In the Silence
Mark 6:31 “The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.”
This verse comes after the time when Jesus started to send the apostles out two by two to do His works. When they came back they felt exhausted and they told Him all they were doing. I am sure they were excited to share with Jesus all the good things they had been doing. I know I would have been. However, even though they were out doing good things, they were still tired. It says many were coming and going and they had no leisure even to eat. Have you ever been that busy, so busy you forgot to eat? I am betting we have all been there at one point or another, and although not eating ins’t good for you, it isn’t bad to be busy at times. We will all go through seasons in our lives when we are busier than we want to be. The key is to balance those times with times where you aren’t crazy busy.
An example of this is when you have a baby, or young children. Chances are, you are not getting a lot of sleep and maybe missing some meals when you have a baby and when your children are young. You can’t help being busy in this phase of your life. Babies are tiny and totally reliant on you, so you have lots of sleepless nights. However, there are things you can do to make this a little easier on yourself. For instance, you can sleep when the baby sleeps. So, instead of trying to get as much done as you can when they nap, you could nap as well. Also, you could not volunteer to do a bunch of different things when your baby or children are little so that you don’t feel overwhelmed with things to do. These are just a few things you can do to make it a little less crazy when your kids are little. As your children start sleeping through the night, or go off to school, your schedule begins to change, and you hopefully get more sleep and have time to slow down and eat.
Sometimes life can give you situations when you need to be busy and sometimes we can create situations where we need to be busy. For instance, we sign up to help out with everything volunteer opportunity that comes our way. Or, maybe we take a job that requires us to work 60 or even 80 hours a week. Whatever the reason, sometimes we are really busy. As I said earlier, it is not bad to be busy, as long as there are times when you are not super busy. This could look different for everyone but there needs to be a time when you are not so busy and you have time to rest.
Jesus knew the importance of rest when it came to His disciples. I am not sure He always knew it when it came to Himself, but He knew the disciples would need to rest. This is why in the verse above Jesus told them to “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” Jesus is calling us to this same thing. When is the last time you had time to rest? Are you filling your days with things that keep you busy? If so, have you examined why you are doing this? Sometimes we stay busy because we don’t want to think about anything. Maybe you are going through a really difficult time right now, or maybe a loved one is. If this is the case, sometimes when we slow down our mind fills with worry or sadness. However, as long as we are moving and not thinking, we feel as if we are doing ok. We think if we just don’t let ourselves think about it all will be ok. I get this thinking. I have definitely been there before. However, this thinking is flawed.
If we are keeping ourselves busy then we are missing out on just sitting with Jesus and letting Him heal us in that silence. I don’t think Jesus is telling the disciples to go to a deserted place to rest just so they could get some sleep. I think He was sending them to a deserted place so they could rest and so He could minister to them. It is often in the silent, alone times that God ministers to us. There have been several words of prophecy as my prayer group that talks about this silence and how powerful it is. One of those words was, “Listen to me deeply. When you listen I can help you, heal you, enrich you through my presence. It is in silence that I speak in a new and better way. But if you chatter and chatter and chatter I cannot be there to heal you.” Another one was, “My children, in the days ahead I ask you to simply be, be with me in silence. Just be and let the silence fill you. Be at peace. Breathe in my Holy Spirit, the very breath of God.”
As you can see, the Lord is still calling us away to a deserted place to be with Him. He is calling us to just BE with Him in the silence. I remember Matthew Kelly in one of his books talked about how much you can learn in the classroom of silence. How much time are you spending in silence with the Lord? I know I struggle with sitting in the silence. I feel I always need to be doing something, serving God in some way. I feel when I am dedicating time to God I need to be praying, or talking, or doing something to honor and praise Him. And yet, in his own words, in the bible verse as well as the words of prophecy, God is telling us we don’t have to always be doing something. He is telling us that He wants to meet us in the silence. He is telling us that in the silence is when He heals us, helps us and enriches us. He is also telling us that His silence can fill us up. Do you ever have times when you just feel empty? I know I do. We tend to give and give and give of our time and then we forget that we need to stop and recharge at some point. God is telling us that we can let Him fill us up, but we need to sit with Him and let Him do it. Have you ever tried to fill your car with gas while you were still driving? It doesn’t work, you need to stop, even just for a few minutes to fill your car up with gas. It’s the same with us but we aren’t using gas. We are filling ourselves with the silence and with the Holy Spirit.
I love the last word of prophecy when the Lord told us to breathe in the Holy Spirit, the very breath of God. Isn’t that amazing that we get to breathe in the very breath of God. My mentor, Pamela Crim, has us start out each morning with taking 3 big intentional breaths. She reminds us that the air we breathe is the very breath of God. While we are taking these three intentional breaths we are asking God to fill us up with His breath and also with whatever we need to get through the day. Do you think you could fit this short daily practice into your life? I know some of us are busier than others, but do you think you have 1 minute a day that you could sit with the Lord and let His breath fill you up? I wonder how much of a change you will see when you are intentional about spending this 60 seconds with the Lord. Give it a shot, what have you got to lose?
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, help us to go somewhere deserted and just spend time with you. Help us to see the importance of slowing down and resting. Help us to spend time in the silence so you can heal us, help us and enrich us. Lord, we want all you have to offer, please help us to figure out where and when to make the time to spend with you. We love you Lord! We are so grateful that you give us your very breath of life to breathe in and fill us up. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you on Monday. Have a blessed weekend!