To Encourage You

Mark 4:10-11 “And when He was alone, those around Him with the twelve asked Him about the parables. And He said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God . . .’”

2020 was a time when words became part of our vocabulary that we would not have even considered prior to that time.  “Stay-at-home-order,” “quarantine,” “non-essential travel,” and “social distancing,” are words we heard time after time every day. Who would have considered that such words would have such a personal impact just a short time before?  Because of this, we read and heard suggestions from every corner about what to do in our down-time.  I heard that there has been a run on puzzles, of all things, as people looked for ways to spend their time at home.  One of the benefits of that time was that people could spend much more time with their families, with the attendant opportunities to get to know those we love the most even better than we did before.  But for Christians, there was  another opportunity that that unique time afforded that we should have taken the utmost advantage of – and that was the opportunity to spend time alone with our Lord.  But did we?

In the verses above from Mark’s narrative of what has come to be known as “The Parable of the Sower,” we find a wonderful account of Jesus’ interaction with his disciples right after he spoke the parable.  You see, this parable was spoken to “a very large crowd gathered about Him” (Mark 4:1). The parable was about seed that had been sown by a farmer on four kinds of soil: soil along the path, rocky soil, soil among thorns, and good soil.  Of the four, only that sown on the good ground produced any fruit.  The seed sown on the other soils was devoured by the birds, died because it had no deep roots, or was choked out because of the weeds.  It is apparent from this account that most of those who heard it never had any understanding of what Jesus was actually talking about, for they never had enough interest to ask.  However, the twelve that knew Jesus best got alone with Him after He spoke and asked Him what the parable meant.  And so Jesus told them, as He began with the wonderful words “to you has been given the secret of the kingdom of heaven.” 

You see, it’s to those that have enough interest to get alone with Christ that He reveals the deep things, the profound truths, of what He has told us in His Word.  In the Old Testament we hear a similar message in Jeremiah 29:13: “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”  So, in that unique time of isolation, a time unlike most of us had ever experienced, perhaps God was giving us a unique opportunity to get alone with Him.  Perhaps He was giving us a time to be away from so many distractions to “pray, go into (our) room and shut the door and pray to (our) Father Who is in secret.” For if we do, believers have been promised that “Your Father who sees in secret will reward you” (Matthew 6:6). 

Surely the Covid 19 crisis was an opportunity for us to get alone with Him.  Surely it was a time when few of us could have said that we just didn’t have time to spend time in quietness speaking to Him in prayer and allowing Him to speak to us through His Word.  It was a time when many of us could have read His Word and meditated deeply upon it.  But did we do so? Are we doing so now?

You see, as we take time to spend with Christ, as we roll His Word over and over in our mind (as opposed to the anxious thoughts that can compete with those opportunities at the very same time) He will open our minds to the fathomless treasures He has given us as perhaps nothing else can do.  And if we do this, if we spend time alone with Him, certainly when we gather with other believers, as we share with one another what our Lord has been teaching us, then that time of fellowship will be so much richer and sweeter. 

May the Lord give us the wisdom to get alone with Him, and may He give us the opportunity to share the secrets of the kingdom He has promised to teach us with others as He opens the doors.