“Come ye apart into a
desert Place, and rest a while” Mark 6:31
Sis Deborah Dwyer
In 1 Kings 3, the Lord appears to Solomon in a dream and
asks “a What shall I give thee?” and Solomon responds and asks for
wisdom to govern God’s people. And the Lord said, “b Because you have asked this
thing, and have not asked long life for yourself, nor have asked riches for
yourself, nor have asked the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself
understanding to discern justice, behold, I have done according to your words; see, I have given you a
wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before
you, nor shall any like you arise after you.” But God goes beyond that, the
Lord says to Solomon, “c And I have also given you what you have not asked: both
riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings
all your days. So if you walk in My ways, to keep My
statutes and My commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen
your days.” Amen.
This is the God we serve, who longs to pour out his favor
upon us, in the spiritual and natural. What will we ask of Him? If the Lord
appears to us in a dream or vision as He did to Solomon what would we do or
say? Would our hearts so please God that He would abundantly pour out such
favor that none before or after you would know such a measure of favor, whether
in wisdom and riches as with Solomon? The word of God says “d He
longs to be gracious to you.” Will we set our hearts to so follow Jesus that
whether He blesses us or not, we choose to be faithful as Job?
At 18 years of age, the Lord challenged me to not go to
college right away. This had been the desire of my heart since I was young and
I wondered at God, why He would take my greatest desire, and challenge me in
it. I had no funds to go to school, I was set to graduate High school, fifth in
my class with over a 4.0 GPA. I had gone to a Performing Arts High School and
knew that I was to go on with my education but did not know how. A four year
education would cost $120,000 USD or more and I had been praying with no
direction from God as to what my next step should be and when He finally spoke,
the Lord gave Mark 6:31, where Jesus says to His disciples, “Come ye apart into
a desert place and rest a while” and for two months the Lord pressed this
scripture on my heart and began convicting my heart to trust Him. After much wrestling, I made up my mind that
I would obey and as my heart began to accept, by faith, God’s invitation, I
began to rest in God’s word. And as I began to trust and walk in obedience, the
parents of my peers began to question, “So Daneilia what are you doing after
graduation?” “I’ll be taking a year off” and they were not pleased at my
response. They bombarded me with their concerns and made it seem as if I was
making the wrong choice, many telling me, “most people who start working end up
never going back to school.” One teacher who I was very close to drove a dagger
into my heart, in opposition of my decision, and it sent me into a spiral
questioning the Lord, if He had really spoken.
And again, I inquired of the Lord, why He was making me do
this, what He really wanted from me and why I couldn’t go to college right
away? And the Lord gave me the entire chapter of Mark 6 and I read through the
miracle of the five loaves and two fish, where Jesus feeds the multitude. And
after feeding the multitude, Jesus sends the disciples ahead of him in a boat
and as the Lord saw them toiling, the Bible says, He came walking on the water in
the fourth watch of the night. And when they all saw Him, they cried out and
were afraid, and Jesus said unto them, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be
afraid” “Then He went up into the boat to them, and the wind stopped. And they
were amazed and marveled.” “For they had not understood about the loaves,
because their heart was hardened” and when I read that last verse, verse 52, I
marveled and cried, and I immediately saw myself in the word of God. There was
Jesus, the Son of God Almighty, revealed before them, daily. They walked with
Him, daily the disciples proved Him, seeing Him perform healings, ministering
to them, calling them out of their livelihood to follow Him and on this same
day, just hours prior, the Lord performed a great miracle, feeding thousands of
people before their eyes. And God’s provision was so much that they all ate,
and were filled, and took up twelve baskets full of fragments and of the fish.
How then does Jesus come walking on water, performing yet another miracle, just
hours later and the disciples feared? As verse 52 so accurately judges, it says,
“they understood not about the loaves because their hearts were hardened.”
And I realized that I did not want this to be me—seeing the
Lord perform the miraculous in my life, time and time again and when He comes
doing the miraculous yet again, I marvel, am amazed or am even afraid, because
my heart is hardened. And I realized that God had proven Himself, so faithful,
so many times since my childhood and beyond and now when He was saying to
entrust my life and my future to Him, to trust Him to do the miraculous, the
impossible, I was unsure. And I read the word and realized, I did not want that
to be me. My heart became convicted that I did not want to be hardened of
heart, and I decided to follow the Lord’s leading and took the year off. One
year later, I got into school but the money still was not there and the Lord
challenged my heart to take another year off and this time I was at peace, for
I had grown spiritually and I knew who holds my future.
And after the second year, the Lord challenged
me to take a third off, and after the third, the Lord spoke and began preparing
me to go back to school. After 4 years of seeking the Lord’s will and putting
my own aside, the Lord provided the money for me to go to university. In August
of 2011, at 22 years old, the age that I would have been graduating if I had
attended college right away, I started college. Four years later in May 2015, I
graduated from University as a Gates Millennium Scholar, owing no man or
institution money. The Lord provided for me in my desert place, as He had done
with the multitude in providing the fish and the loaves. And they were provided
for to the extent that there were fish and loaves left over. Just as Solomon
asked for wisdom to rule God’s people and was blessed in excess of His request,
so too was I blessed. For I asked for a college education and He blessed me
with a college education in excess of what I asked for. He sent me to 11
countries during my time in college, all paid for through His provision. This
is the God we serve, when we ask in faith and in sincerity, the measure of His
abundance is according to His riches
in glory which is above anything we could ever ask for or imagine.
References
a 1 Kings 3; 2 Chronicles 1
b 1 Kings 3:11-12
c 1 Kings 3:13-14
d Isaiah 30:18
e Mark 6:31
f Lamentations 3: 27
