And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness
Mark doesn’t waste any time. In the first 13 verses of Mark, we hear about John the Baptist, coming to prepare the way, about Jesus’ arrival, and baptism by John, about the dove-like appearance of the Sprit, and the voice from heaven saying, “You are my son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased, and finally about Jesus’ hasty retreat to the wilderness, where he’s tempted by Satan, and angels waited on him. A lot happens in this brief section.
Today, I’m thinking about Jesus immediately being driven out into the wilderness by the Sprit. In my world, I don’t get the sense that the Sprit does anything warranting the word ‘immediately’. The nudgings I sense from the Spirit are gentle, and sometimes hard to even notice.
Or maybe it’s just that I’m less open to the voice and calling of the Spirit. For example, if I got the sense that the Spirit was calling me to 40 days in the wilderness, I’m sure I’d second guess that message. Maybe it was something I ate. Or maybe I mis-heard. My mortal, practical brain would definitely weigh in, if I got a sense of a spiritual call that didn’t seem to make sense.
It’s unlikely that I would be called into the wilderness for 40 days. But what has the spirit called me to do, to be? What have I talked my way out of, because it didn’t jive with my understanding of my world? There are many places in my life where it seemed like there was a split in the road. Did I listen to the Spirit?
I don’t know, and I’m not worried about it, because I believe God looks at my life, at my choices, and says, “Hmm. I can work with that” (a concept I heard in a sermon once).
But I do want to live more attentively to what the Spirit is calling me to do. That requires a level of stillness and discernment that I constantly need to practice.
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