“Come apart” or come apart.
As in the days when He tabernacled among men, so today the Lord, though the center of the heavenly host and the theme of their song, longs for the companionship of His saints. He wants their hearts. It is a wonderful thought! His voice calls today—to the saint no less than to the sinner—“If any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me” (Rev. 3:20).
We live in times of rush and turmoil; we are so actively engaged in a hundred and one things; we are “cumbered about much serving” (Lk. 10:40); we address meetings and attend meetings; we rush here and there with the inevitable result that often the noise about us and the restlessness of our spirits within prevent our hearing His voice.
We become tired spiritually as well as physically; we lose our freshness. We need a holiday. For if we persistently rush on, even in zealous service for the Lord, and neglect the quiet of communion with Him, we quickly dry up spiritually. We need to be refreshed.
And how gracious is our Lord! If we will not take time to hear His voice when we are strong and active, He may in His great interest in us and yearning for the affections of our hearts, gently take us aside out of the rush and bustle of life into “a desert place.”
How many saints, tired and worn out, have thanked Him for laying them aside in sickness in order that they might “rest a while,” and while resting enjoy quiet communion with Him to an extent that would have been impossible otherwise.
We frequently hear quoted in cases of sickness such passages of Scripture as, “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby” (Heb. 12:11). It is well to bear in mind that “whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth” (Heb. 12:6), but have we given thought to the possibility that sickness may not always be in the nature of chastening (as we generally use the word) but may sometimes, in the mercy of God, be His gracious provision of a holiday—in order that we might “rest a while”?
After the disciples had a very tiring day and had received the sorrowful news of the beheading of John the Baptist, and “had gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told Him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught,” the Lord, with the thoughtful compassion He ever evinced for them, invited them to “Come…apart into a desert place, and rest a while” (Mk. 6:31).
The crowds were thronging around them. He wanted them by themselves—alone, and away from the multitude. Why?
Two answers may be suggested: First, He knowing, their frame (Ps. 103:14), wished them to rest; and second, He desired intimate communion with them away from the noise of the surging throng. It was not that He desired to impart some instruction to them. He wished them alone in a place where they would not be disturbed. So He chose a deserted place. The crowds are not usually found there. There the Lord and His own might have sweet communion and the disciples might rest in His presence.
It would appear that on the occasion under consideration the rest was quickly disturbed, but we may safely assume that the incident is a sample of the Lord’s ways with His own, and that He frequently took them into a desert place to rest.
Rest in a desert place with Christ—how refreshing! There is no thought of chastening, nor any suggestion that the occasion was used to rebuke the disciples. No, they were taken to rest awhile. Oh, the joy of resting with Him and in Him. It is not so much outpouring of hearts to Him for we may be too tired even to do that—but rather listening to His voice or it may be simply resting in His presence without so much as a word being spoken.
And what a desert! It is no arid, uninviting wasteland, because with His presence “the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose.”
Blessed rest of weary souls.