He Misses You

 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. Luke 5:16

Early this morning, I woke up and knew the Lord was calling me to spend some time with Him.  There was a familiar tug in my spirit.  And I was wide awake after only 4 hours of sleep.  It was one of those treasured times.  I felt His love and my heart was full of love for my creator.  I just wanted to express my love for Him. It was so refreshing, so necessary.  It was during that time, the Holy Spirit told me to tell a certain person that God missed spending time with them. I immediately told the Lord that it wasn’t my place.  Throughout the day, the Lord kept urging me to be obedient.  Finally, I passed on God’s message.  God loves meeting with His children.  There are times our schedule becomes too busy.  Or we stray away, because we feel disconnected from God. Whatever our excuse, our heavenly Father longs to fellowship with us.

Sometimes our quiet times with Him become too quiet, even lonely! There are seasons when we don’t feel the presence of God.  It’s interesting that the Word says, that Jesus withdrew to lonely places and prayed.  He withdrew from the busyness, the crowds, the chaos to seek His Father.  And in his humanity, he felt the loneliness that we feel at times.  Six times in the Bible it says that Jesus went to a lonely place.  Some versions use the word ‘desert place’ instead of ‘lonely place’.  A desert is defined as ‘a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile.’ It’s not exactly what I think of when I look for a prayer closet. Sometimes our prayer times may seem like a desert place. And yet Jesus chose to go to the desert place. Did Jesus feel distant from His Father while the darkness of the world weighed on Him?  Were the lonely places lonely because they were absent of chaos or because Jesus had to shake off thoughts and temptations (not sin) before He could enjoy His Father’s company? Jesus once again identifies with humanity.  Maybe it is necessary to go to the desert place to find intimacy with God, even though our humanity desires distractions and noise.   

Whatever the case, we know that for Jesus it was a priority to withdraw from everything and spend time with the Father. If Jesus, fully human and fully God had to withdraw from distractions and go to a desert place, can we in our human nature hope to have an intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father without following His example? It’s easy to fill our prayer time with distractions, because it is hard to quietly wait on God.  It’s natural to bring chaos with us to our prayer time.  The real threat that distractions, chaos and busyness slowly create in us a hardened and distant heart towards God.  We walk away from an intimate personal relationship into a religious mindset.  Today, let’s make the choice to withdraw from all troubles and distractions and go to the desert place to find our Heavenly Father.  He has made it His priority to build a relationship with you, have you made it your priority?  He misses you!

“Prayer does not fit us for the greater work, it is the greater work.” Oswald Chambers