Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 67 · March 8
The Rest That Did Not Come
“And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.”
We quote this one to each other when we are tired, and we quote the half that helps. Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while. It gets read at retreats and printed under photographs of lakes, and we all nod, and we go back to work.
Friend, read the next two verses before you build anything on it.
The apostles have just come back from their first assignment without him, full of what they had done and taught. He hears them out, sees the state of them, and gives the order: there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. They get into a boat. And the people saw them departing, and many knew him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together unto him. The crowd goes round the lake on foot and beats the boat to the far shore. The quiet day is finished before it starts.
What he does next is the part I want you to have. Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was moved with compassion toward them, because they were as sheep not having a shepherd. No sigh is recorded. No remark to the twelve about how this always happens. He teaches them for hours, feeds five thousand men, sends them away, and only at verse forty-six gets what he set out for: he departed into a mountain to pray. He took it later, alone, in the dark, at the end of the longest day in the chapter.
Your good plan can survive being ruined. On the days it is taken from you, you have not been robbed by strangers. The thing you needed will still be there at eleven at night when the house finally goes quiet. And his particular way of looking at whoever ran round the lake to reach him first is on offer to you as well.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 67 is Made Near (Ephesians 2:13).