Word for Wednesday
And He withdrew Himself into the wilderness and prayed. Luke 5:16
One preacher described prayer as something like windsurfing. The windsurfer climbs onto the board, raises the sail, and allows the wind – a force many times more powerful than himself – to propel him across the lake. Every windsurfer rides solo; there is no room on the board for a group or a family or a friend. The windsurfer makes his way to where he wants to go by allowing the wind to provide the energy and direction. That is much like personal prayer, where we seek to tap into the power of God to obtain what we cannot hope to achieve for ourselves. This is different from public prayer, in which the saints unite in fellowship to petition God. Our text speaks of the Lord Jesus going to the wilderness to pray. Even as God the Son, He knew the need for accessing the power of God the Father.
Our text occurs after the Lord Jesus is deluged with attention and demands, after the healing of a leper. Huge crowds came to see and hear Him, and to see, and experience, the power of His miracles of healing. But the Lord Jesus did not draw His power from the attention of the large crowds or from the momentum of His preaching tour of the Galilee region. No, He knew that His power was not from those around Him, but from His Father and God. That is a lesson that we need to learn. We need to experience a little more of the wilderness, where we can access our God without all of the distractions of the world around us. We will find as our Lord did that there are few, if any, people to interrupt prayer time in the wilderness. Calming scenes of nature, devoid of the activities of man, help to calm and refresh the soul. Trees and weeds and rocks and sand present no challenges or worries to us. In such a place, we can remember our Creator as we consider His creation, and be drawn closer to Himself.
Not all of us live and work in places where we can spend prayer time in the wilderness, at least not in the type of wilderness where the Lord Jesus went. If we can, so much the better. But the most important aspect of the wilderness where the Lord Jesus went was solitude, the absence of the crowds and the activities of people. And we can all find such a place in our day for solitude with our God. I remember when we would visit Annie Haines, waking up in the middle of the night to hear her praying aloud in her room. In her case, her wilderness solitude with God was not so much a place but a time. There was no other competition for her attention at 3 o’clock in the morning.
The wilderness is a good environment for prayer, if we are to experience the power of God in our experience. Is there a wilderness you can enter today? – Jim MacIntosh