Broken bread and small fish: To Be Where You Are

Chalkboard: Mark 3:7-10 Post 1 To Be Where You Are brokenbreadandsmallfish.com

You withdrew with Your disciples to the lake...
   ...to be alone? ...to avoid the Pharisees? ...to teach the disciples?...to rest?

I don't know. It doesn't say here. Maybe all of the above. Maybe none of the above.

All I know is that You DID withdraw with Your disciples to the lake.
And...that people from all around followed You there.

A crowd from Galilee (Mark 3:7). Even people from Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and Tyre and Sidon. They heard about what You were doing, and they came. (Mark 3:8)

In my mind today, none of those places was very far. The farthest was Idumea in the South, about 60 miles. An hour in the car, more or less.

Doesn't seem like a big deal.

But...

...they didn't have a car. At best, they might have had a donkey. So, assuming the roads were good and fairly flat, I'm thinking a few days, at least, of traveling. If they walked about three miles an hour, six or so hours a day, it would have taken 3 days. Eight hours a day would have taken about two and half days - which, technically, is still three days.

I'm guessing it took longer. But I'll say three days.

That's a long time to travel, and a lot of walking.

It takes us about two days of traveling to get from Atlanta to Novosibirsk (or vice versa), depending on how we time it. It's fairly rigorous, but not in the same way traveling by foot would be. It takes a different kind of physical toll on our bodies. A different kind of exertion, and different kinds of dangers.

Why did they do it? Why did they travel that distance?

Because...
they had heard about all You were doing (Mark 3:8), and they wanted to see You, to see with their own eyes and hear with their own ears - maybe even to touch with their own hands.

It's good to hear about who You are and the wonderful things You are doing and saying in the world.

But is that enough for me? Am I content to just hear about it?

No.

I don't want to just hear about it. I want - I need - to know You myself. And I want to be right in the middle of all You are doing today.

I want to be where You are.

Everyone's role is different, and everyone's part is different.

But -

I don't want to just hear about You healing - I want to see You healing people and I want to be healed myself and to help others be healed.

I don't want to just hear about what You are saying - I want to hear Your words myself. I want to hear You speaking to ME.

I don't want to just hear about how someone reached out and touched You, or how You touched them - I want to touch You myself.

I don't want to just hear about Your eyes, I want to look into them myself.

And I don't want to just hear about how You fed the crowd.

I want to be there, one of the crowd that You are feeding, eating what You have to offer, and, like the disciples, helping You get the food to others.

How far am I willing to go to see You?
...to be in the midst of what You are doing?
...to be part of what You are doing?
...to be where You are?

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