In the book our group is studying, The Celebration of Discipline, we just finished the chapter on Solitude. In this day and age with cell phones always within reach and Ipods blasting our ears with music and the many other distractions filling our day, its rare to find silence. In the study of the discipline of solitude, I found how important solitude was for Jesus. Before Jesus fed the 5000, He and his diciples, ´Withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethsaida´(Luke 9:10) Later on it says that ´Each day Jesus was teaching at the temple, and each evening he went out to spend the night on the hill called Mount of Olives´(Luke 21:37) The Mount of Olives is the same place where Jesus prayed before he was sentenced to death. Jesus did not take solitude lightly, but He embraced it. With every desire to live as Christ did, this past Friday our team spent the day on a bluff, the beautiful mountain side that overlooks Granada. (Where I am in my blog photo) We packed a picnic lunch, brought our journals and bibles, and marveled in God´s presence for the afternoon.

   Its hard for me to put into words the beauty that God showed me that day. With his remarkable creation all around me and the truthful words of Psalm 104 running through my mind, I felt a new closeness with my Savior and my Best Friend. Psalm 104 describes God´s power and sovereignty over all creation. Sometimes the thought of the vast expances leaves me feeling small. However shortly after this minute feeling overcame me, I was lead to 2 Corinthians 12:9 which says,

Reading this passage was somewhat of a revelation for me. Paul continues to say in verse 10,

  ´For when I am weak, then I am strong´