Wednesday 5 Jan 2022

January 5: Mark 6:45-52

Key Verse: Mark 6:46
After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.

Devotion:
After feeding so many people and giving them much food for thought, the spiritual kind, Jesus retired to go and pray to His Father in Heaven. This was not a sign of weakness or a sign of having worked too hard. This was a sign of love for His Father in Heaven. He wanted to give thanks for everything which had happened so the people could be fed.

But once the disciples were alone in the boat in the middle of the lake, they began to lose sight of the power of God and began to focus on the wind and the wave surrounding them. Even after we have received blessings from God, as soon as something ruffles our feathers, we begin to focus on earthly things and tend to leave God out!

Jesus stopped what He was doing and set aside time to be with God. He did not wait until things started to break down before He prayed, He set time aside to pray. Note the disciples were perfectly safe while He was praying – because God would have been keeping an eye out for them anyway. But after His time of prayer, He started to make His way back to the disciples. Unfortunately they had allowed the weather to get the better of them and they were struggling to get back to shore.

Jesus decided to meet them where they were. He did not wait for them to struggle all the way to the shore – He walked out to them, walking on the water. They were terrified at seeing something like a spirit walking out to them because they were too consumed with what was happening. But when Jesus spoke, they recognised Him and things settled down when Jesus joined them in the boat. They still did not have the foresight to see what God was doing by providing for the people. He was sharing His love!

Points to Ponder:
Do you focus too much on the world?

Will you fully accept God’s love?