Read Luke 5: 15-16

Dear Solitude,

I like you and I don’t. You are good and you are evil. Like a coin with two sides.

Heads! Solitude, on one side, you are good:

“Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”

In this passage I read that Christ often spent time alone, apart from everyone, including His disciples. Away from the clamor, the questions, and the attention; no distractions like the sound of a cell phone buzzing with text messages or email notifications.  Oh, there might have been the sound of a bird singing or a donkey in the distance.  But, for the most part, just silence. And in that wonderful side of you, Solitude, I imagine there were no voices, aside from the conversation in his head with His Dad.

Was Jesus just tired of being around people?  No.

I’m reminded, Solitude, of John 13:18b – “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” Christ doesn’t just LIKE us. He doesn’t read our Facebook status, hit the “like” button, and move on.  He loves us deeply. And he stays by our side because it is where He wants to be. Unlike two small siblings strapped into car seats and forced to ride together in the back seat of a car on an eternally long road trip, our Savior will never leave us nor forsake us – not because he is stuck with us, but because he thoroughly desires to be next to us for the entire ride.

Did Jesus grow weary of healing the multitude of folks whose bodies and spirits were broken? No, again.

God’s only Son, in whom all power and authority had been placed (Ephesians 1:20-23), allowed himself to be confined within the physical limitations of a human body. Surely, there were times when he became “bone weary.”  Yet Jesus understood well his mission and the power he had been given to complete it. That same incredible power made available to us. (Ephesians 1:19-21)

Your “Heads” side, Solitude? Solitude with God can be empowering, comforting, soothing.

I’ll have more to say to you tomorrow, Solitude, when I talk to you about your other side – the bad side of your coin.

Wade Karhan