Devotion 05 May 2026

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 3: 5,6.

READING: Mark 6: 30-56

Mark 6 verse 31 stands out as being something that could describe a day in the 21^st century, not the first. “There were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.”

There are many days when life is very much like that. What can we do in such a day of almost unbearable strain, when we feel that we can no longer live at such a pace, but don’t know how to find relief?

Jesus’s response to his disciples was, “Come apart into to a desert place and rest awhile” (v31)

It is always possible to “rest awhile” even for a second; to take time to make our heart quiet in His presence. If we wait in silence before the One, we will carry the vision of Him with us in our hearts as we go forward. This could be called the secret of victorious living.

But how to maintain that peace as the pressures of the day build up? Mark’s description of Jesus’s days indicate intense pressure but Jesus always seemed to have time to bring to each person’s case a quiet and undivided heart.

The secret may be to do everything consciously for God. To accept each event of the busy day as being part of His holy will for us. Each one who is “coming and going” in our busy lives comes from the Father and, for His sake, we welcome and serve each person. Each task is something our Father has given us to do and we make the doing of it an offering of love to Him - doing one thing at a time, concentrating humbly and eagerly on the present moment, with its work to do, its claims to meet, its suffering, if necessary, to bear.

Facing life in this way, makes each moment, although part of a busy day, also, as it were, environed with an air of space, freedom and leisure. And we go from one moment to the next, doing each task for God, seeing God in every face we meet. And so, even in the hurry of business, our hearts are kept in the quiet of Christ, resting with Him in the presence of God.

Prayer

My Father, forgive me for the distracted life I lead, with its days so full of restless hurry and with so little to show for all its noise. Put Your own quiet within my heart. Bring me into such fellowship with You that every duty will be done for You, every trouble will only drive me back to You, and every joy be magnified with You. Make me so deeply at rest in You that I shall be able to bear others’ burdens and bring to them Your peace. You have shown me what life could be like. Help me by Your grace to start today. Amen