When He was alone…the twelve asked Him about the parable. —Mark 4:10
His Solitude with Us. When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted desires, a broken friendship, or a new friendship— when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us.
January 13 2016
Journal Entry for Today-JDV
Good morning God and thank You for this devotional and the daily teaching You provide. This sentence Chambers offers up stopped me cold for a minute; When God gets us alone through suffering, heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, or by thwarted desires, a broken friendship, or a new friendship— when He gets us absolutely alone, and we are totally speechless, unable to ask even one question, then He begins to teach us. David and I thought the same thing when we read this, isn’t there an easier way Lord? Is there any way for us to avoid these kinds of experiences as prerequisites for Your teaching? Then we recalled that in the Garden at Gethsemane Jesus also asked if there was another way.
And God says…”My ways are not your ways, and I know what it takes for you to come to surrender, connection and curiosity. If you could live in “the big four”: to look good, feel good, be right and be in control that is where you would reside, naturally. It takes heartbreak, temptation, disappointment, sickness, thwarted desires, broken friendships, and new friendships to stop you in your tracks so that you want and need to be alone with Me. Allowing you to live in difficult and trying circumstances is necessary for you to learn surrender. When you come to the end of yourself, where you know you cannot find relief or rescue in your own solutions, or in the solutions of others, is where you surrender. All things work together for the good of those that love the lord and are called according to His purpose. When you seek Me first, know that I will provide everything else you require so that I may teach you. I love you, and will not keep any good thing from you; including the refining fires of difficult circumstances. ”