Recently, I took a weekend off from everything I normally do. I drove for four hours, down to the south coast in Australia. The previous few days had been difficult for me, as I have had huge challenges in my spiritual, physical and emotional lives. I felt like I had to get away, not because that I wanted to flee from all the challenges, but to get some rest and spend time with God.<\/p>\n
Sometimes in life, we go through seasons in which we feel alone or left out, or maybe we are searching for stronger friends\/relationships. Sometimes when we search for relationships to try and get out of the loneliness, we realise that doesn`t really help either.<\/p>\n
Have you ever had a season where you felt alone, and maybe left out because of a particular need you were looking to fill but you couldn\u2019t?<\/p>\n
In Western society, loneliness, or being alone is often seen as a bad thing. As an outgoing-introvert, who loves to go out with people but also needs some time for myself during the week, I don\u2019t agree with that! I believe that every time we are alone, is a time when God is pulling us closer to Him so that He can work in us even more. Yes, we are created for relationships but spending time alone is also worthwhile!<\/p>\n
Let`s have a look at a story from Elijah\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
Some consider Elijah one of the greatest Prophets, whatever he prayed happened and whatever he said was done! Ahab was a great king with huge influence at that time.[1]<\/strong><\/a><\/em> Elijah made it into Ahab`s presence as an adversary. Through this, Elijah became famous and people were looking for him.<\/p>\n Yet God, rather than sending Elijah to the people as a prophet, first sent him to a brook called Cherith, as it says in 1. Kings 17: 2-3 \u201cThen the word of the <\/em>Lord<\/em> came to him, saying, 3 <\/sup>\u201cGet away from here and turn eastward, and hide<\/strong> by the Brook Cherith, which flows into the Jordan.\u201c (NKJV)<\/em><\/p>\n At the brook of Cherith, God taught Elijah the value of a hidden life. God wanted him to be there, just him and Elijah.<\/p>\n We don`t need to be surprised if God sometimes says to us \u201cSon\/Daughter, for the moment you have had enough from this public, stressful, hardworking, disappointing and ill-based hope kind of life. Go, hide yourself somewhere and spend time with Me, I AM the one<\/strong> who gives you what you`re really looking for!\u201c[2]<\/a><\/p>\n We often think, that when we are on our own, we are alone. But this is far from the truth! It might be true physically but not spiritually! This is a time when God wants you to just be with Him – without anybody or anything around you that might disturb your time together!<\/p>\n Three things I consider great about being alone:<\/p>\n God wants to protect you from something that might lead you away from your destiny!<\/p>\n In John chapter 6, we read about the miracle of Jesus feeding a large crowd of 5000 men, which were probably around 15000 when you count the women and kids! After he performed this miracle Jesus does something that might surprise us.<\/em> It says in v. 14 and 15 \u201c <\/sup>When the people saw him do this miraculous sign, they exclaimed, \u201cSurely, he is the Prophet we have been expecting!\u201d<\/em> When Jesus saw that they were ready to force him<\/strong> to be their king, he slipped away into the hills by himself.\u201c (NLT)<\/em><\/p>\n Often in our life, we are \u201cforced\u201c from the outside to do this and that, or someone tells us that we need to turn in a particular direction, in order to reach the potential in our life!<\/p>\n As Jesus was going to be forced by the multitude to be king, which at that point was not yet his time, he knew the power of withdrawing from them. Instead of listening to what others said, he went to be alone, in order to spend time with God and realign his focus!<\/p>\n Question: Are you influenced by what others say about you, or are you influenced by what God is saying about you?<\/p>\n God wants to lead you in prayer even when things are busy around you!<\/p>\n Another miracle was performed by Jesus in Luke 5:12-16 and as we know, he always turned into the right direction. After the miracle happened it says in v. 15-16 \u201c<\/em><\/sup>Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses.<\/em> <\/sup>But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.\u201c<\/strong> (NIV)<\/em><\/p>\n In today`s world, we don\u2019t need to look far to see our busyness. Being busy is a great thing that shows us that we are graced to have things to do like going to school, work, leading or even parenting. But busyness also can lead to a destructive life. As Jesus withdrew from the busyness, so should we! At the end of the day, our connection to God should come before our busyness, because God is a God who watches out for our relationship and not our performances!<\/p>\n Question: Is your life ruled by your busyness or are you ruling your life with prayers?<\/p>\n God is preparing you for the next season to come!<\/p>\n The story set in the garden of Gethsemane in Mark chapter 14, is a beautiful picture of how Jesus stepped into time out with God. There, he was prepared for his next mission, which was to die for us on the cross to free us from all our sins! Jesus took three people with him: Peter that means \u201cStone or Law\u201c; James, which is the same as Jacob and means \u201cSupplanter,\u201d and John, which means \u201cYahweh is Gracious.\u201d [3]<\/a> In another words, Jesus went to this \u201clonely\u201c place and took these three with him for a purpose, to remind him that his mission was to replace<\/strong> the law<\/strong> with grace! <\/strong><\/p>\n I believe that in our time alone, or when God whispers to us to withdraw from our \u201ceveryday\u201c world, there is always a reason that God is preparing us for something greater than we can imagine! Like in Jesus\u2019 life, God wants us to complete our mission and to find his given destiny for us. But we won`t find this without focusing on Him and making this sacrifice of sometimes being \u201calone\u201d with Him!<\/p>\n Question: Have you taken time out with God in order to refresh your life?<\/p>\n I hope you`ve had an injection of inspiration and wisdom as you\u2019ve read this! May we never forget our need being in God`s presence and make him our most important source for what we really need in our life! God is faithful and when he reigns in your soul, you will never be alone, no matter what you are going through!<\/p>\n Thank you so much for reading this blog! If there is anything I can help you with, please shout me a message, I would love to hear from you!<\/p>\n With Love! Nathanael<\/p>\n #NeverAlone #blog5 #itsallaboutHim<\/p>\n Never Alone! Recently, I took a weekend off from everything I normally do. I drove for four hours, down to the south coast in Australia. The previous few days had been difficult for me, as I have had huge challenges in my spiritual, physical and emotional lives. I felt like I had to get away, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1058,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","post_format-post-format-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanaelzurbruegg.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanaelzurbruegg.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanaelzurbruegg.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanaelzurbruegg.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanaelzurbruegg.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nathanaelzurbruegg.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanaelzurbruegg.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanaelzurbruegg.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanaelzurbruegg.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanaelzurbruegg.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} 1. When you are alone…<\/span><\/h3>\n
2. When you are alone…<\/span><\/h3>\n
3. When you are alone…<\/span><\/h3>\n
\nReferences:<\/h6>\n
[1]<\/a> \u201cBlueletterBible\u201c \u201cCoomentaries\u201c \u201cDavid Guzik\u201c \u201c1.Kings 17:\u201c \u201c2.2\u201c https:\/\/www.blueletterbible.org\/Comm\/guzik_david\/StudyGuide_1Ki\/1Ki_17.cfm<\/a><\/span><\/h6>\n
[2]<\/a> \u201cYouVerison Bible App\u201c\u201cDay by Day by Billy Graham\u201c\u201cDay 65\u201d<\/h6>\n
[3]<\/a> \u201cThe City\u201c\u201cNights of Generosity\u201c\u201cJohn Gray\u201c\u201cFrom here to There\u201c \u201cMin. 35-36\u201c http:\/\/thecity.org\/message\/from_here_to_there<\/h6>\n
[4] \u201cPicture\u201c<\/span> \u201chttps:\/\/www.google.com.au\/search?q=never+alone&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjet_jB5uLMAhVKGZQKHcaHCX0Q_AUICCgC&biw=1371&bih=630&dpr=0.9#imgrc=77ZJgVsz7QcRAM%3A\u201c<\/span><\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"