“After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.”
Mark 1:35
Dealing with people can be tiresome work. We are a tiresome lot indeed! Ha! Why? Because people are not simple, but complex. The issues that we create–especially in relationships–are all the more complex.
Jesus is, in all ways, the pattern for our life. Professor of Systematic Theology, The Rev. Dr. Kate Sonderegger from VTS, (coming to speak at Wednesday’s Get Fed, by the way!) preached a sermon at an ordination to the priesthood for a classmate of mine and said those same words. Like a tailor has a pattern for the suit to be made, Jesus is the pattern for how we should try to live our lives.
And, look what he does…fairly often: He withdraws, goes to a quiet place, and spends time alone in prayer. How often do we take the time–ANY TIME–to be quiet, be alone, and have a conversation with God? We are busy, busy people. But it means all the more to God, I would imagine, that despite our busyness (or even BECAUSE of our busyness) we carved out time to spend with God. Now Jesus was the rock star of prayer, I’m guessing that the rest of us aren’t quite at that level, yet. But, you have to start somewhere, right?
Here’s my prayer challenge for us: Between now and Thanksgiving (a mere month away), take 3 minutes–you can time it on your phone if you’d like–and be quiet and pray every day. If you want to share something with God, great. If you just use those three minutes to be quiet and listen for God to talk with you, that’s great as well. You can start with something as simple as: “God, here I am.”
Take those three minutes and hold them as holy and sacred…because you will find that they ARE just that.
In Christ,
The Daily Cup 
In Christ, Matthew, Jesus is our pattern because Jesus is Living Scripture. He lives it and He is it. His Flesh and Blood in the Holy Eucharist informs us, scripturally, and lets us also become living scripture. In a very real way we will be living scripture for when we are resurrected at the end of the world we will BE the end of the Bible, which ends with Christ resurrected and yet goes on to us. So God will have living Scripture rather than a text that is academic and intellectual. I talk to God a lot. Especially when something is painful in my life. But I feel like St. Therese of Lisieux, that I should rather BE the living connection or love of God than talk (make empty words) to Him. So you can talk in prayer but with that in mind.