Luke 5:16 But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

Have you lately felt lonely? Abandoned? Crying to God for answers? Psalm 25:16 Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. As David did in this verse of Psalms? Loneliness can be both, a blessing or a curse. Luke writes that: Jesus withdrew to find peace and to pray. Mark 6:46 After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray. So Jesus withdrew from the demands put on him to find time for contact with God. Often demands pressure modern man. Though he supposedly has more "free" time than his forefathers, quiet time is rare. Maybe because the opposite effect is it a little feared. For in quiet all unsolved problems seem to raise their ugly heads claiming to be solved immediately. But many things cannot be solved, at least not in this world. Man lives with that tension . Between the utter despair, the cries of loneliness and the blessed silence of withdrawal and the quiet time of reflection. Some think solitude is boring, to some it is frightening, to others a blessing. Some of that new "solitude of big towns" that has been claimed, may be a blessing with nobody looking to ease that loneliness, while others even in smaller towns nearly die out of lack of companionship. Whatever your stand towards a time alone, at some time or other it seems to come to everybody and it is a great good, if man is able to enjoy his own company. It will very probably be required of all. Sooner or later. And even Jesus felt lonely when he cried at the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Mt. 27:46