35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.
This just struck me as I sit here on my couch a 5:37am, it is pitch dark, its so quiet I hear all the noises of the house that normally go unnoticed during the day. Ticking of the clock, hum of the refrigerator. Its probably the only shot I have during a day of being in a solitary place. Reading this verse is a reminder to me that if Jesus needed to get to a solitary lace to pray, I should probably make sure I do the same at times to connect with our Maker one one on without distractions.
Mark 1 covers a lot of ground, I like the connection right off the bat to the old testament. We just left Malachi where in Ch3 he tells us a messenger with prepare the way and here we are at the beginning of the chapter reading about the fulfillment of that prophesy.
good stuff.
knut
Its a strange thing, to go from Malachi to Mark. The minor prophets were all about talking and visions. This is an actual witness account of actions. It reads very differently.
ReplyDeleteIt covers so much ground, I find it hard to pull something unique out. I agree with what you're saying on the solitude. I'm not good at that. I'm not a morning person....AT ALL! I have, so far in life, been unsuccessful at creating a habit of getting up early to read and pray. That sounds really lame, as I write it......hahaha.... something more to work on.
The part that struck me, is how these young fisherman immediately followed Jesus at his prompting. It doesn't give a ton of details here, but it doesn't read like they had a long conversation, or that Jesus really worked to convince them. They just dropped everything and followed him. They didn't run home to tell the family good-bye. The didn't evaluate their 401k to see if they were all set before they followed. And what was it about the fisherman that Jesus wanted? I know they weren't considered very highly in society, but I think its probably significant that he chose fisherman.
tp