The Desolate Places

Yesterday morning while I was having my quiet time, I came across a verse in Mark that really struck me. I stopped reading, and just had to try to wrap my mind around what the verse was saying… It is amazing what the Lord uses to speak to us because I am sure that I had read that same verse many, many times before without giving it a thought, but this time it hit me. The verse is as follows: ¨But he went out and began to talk freely about it, and to spread the news, so that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town, but was out in desolate places, and people were coming to him from every corner (emphasis mine).¨ Mark 1:45 ESV
This phrase just made me stop and think for a while. It´s not a very striking verse, though. What I mean is that this verse hadn´t jumped out at me before yesterday; I would read it and just keep on going, but yesterday was different for some reason. I came to the conclusion that there was a reason Jesus was out in the `desolate places´ at that time. His fame had begun to spread as one who could heal people with a touch and cast out demons with a single word. I think he went to the desolate places because there, only the most desperate and believing people would come find him to be healed. Think about it: if Jesus were in the city, anyone with a cold or something slightly inconvenient could confront Jesus to be healed, and I´m sure He would (as time consuming as it would be). But if He´s out in the middle of nowhere, then people will think twice about going to see Him to be healed. The people with no hope (lepers, the blind, the lame, etc) would seek Him out no matter His location. I believe this is a test of their faith in His power to heal them. And the verse says that still people were coming to Him; I can picture the most broken and hopeless people being the ones to go to Him in that desolate place.
Many of us find ourselves in `desolate places´ at least once in our lives. It seems like nothing is going our way, we´re struck with a hopeless situation, everyone seems to desert us at a moment´s notice, or we just feel at our wit´s end. It is there that I believe that Jesus is waiting for us. He wants to help us at all times, but in those desolate places of our lives it seems to me that He jumps at the opportunity to comfort us with His presence. We sometimes forget that Jesus´ main goal while He was here on the earth was not to heal the physical infirmities He confronted, nor was it to cast out the demons He came across in His travels, and today it is not to make His church´s life easier; far from it. His main goal is to bring the lost and broken into His family, no matter the cost (His painful death being the ultimate one).
We, as followers of Christ, should be going to the `desolate places´ of others to reach them in the name of our Lord. All that this requires is our ability to be transparent with others and to be able to recognize when someone has reached that desolate place. It will take us looking beyond our own lives, and actively trying to empathize with our neighbors around us (neighbors being everyone…). My prayer is that I, for one, can look beyond my own selfish pity and be able to help a hurting human being out of their desolate place, or at the very least point them on the path to the One who can heal them of their woes.