He departed again to the mountain by Himself alone. John 6:15
When He had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him. Matthew 8:1

I tend toward the solitary. Although I enjoy being around others, especially my family and good friends, I’m pretty content and rarely bored when I’m alone. However, I’ve been married for over five decades to a terrific man and in this season neither one of us is ever alone very long. Most of the time we’re together 24/7. I thank the Lord for longevity in marriage! It is a gift. I’ve learned that when I’m alone, doing my own thing in the garden, walking in the hills or making a new quilt, I am just fine and at peace. It’s also a gift. But I’ve found a greater blessing – not merely to be by myself, but to be alone with the person I love. Can there be a lovelier relationship than simply being with another beloved person, without the multitudes intruding? It’s been God’s intention for intimacy from the beginning. We get a glimpse in the Garden.

The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Genesis 2:18

Before the snake came, Adam and Eve were alone with one another and they were alone with the LORD God who walked with them in the cool of the day. That was and still is God’s relational blueprint for mankind. With the fall came sin. Then came separation and loneliness and isolation. Then came the inexorable, slow death of the heart’s deepest longings – to be with someone special and to be with the Creator. Our spiritual DNA shimmers with the memory.

Jesus was rarely alone. From the beginning to the end of His ministry, crowds followed Him everywhere He went. It’s hard to imagine the tremendous noise, jostling, press of bodies and general chaos of the multitudes in Galilee thronging around Jesus. I’ve ridden the subway in New York during rush hours and have been packed cheek to jowl with total strangers inside a train car. Here the comparison ends, for no one talks on a New York train. Everyone is shut off. No one is alone with their train mates.

In those days, Jesus went out to the mountain to pray, and He spent the night in prayer to God. Luke 6:12

Jesus went up the mountain at solitary hours to pray to the Father, away from the constant demands of people for the crowds were always waiting for Him to come back down. The Bible doesn’t describe Jesus during those times nor His prayers but they must have been intense. If Jesus needed alone time with the Father, how much more do we need to seek God? He spent the night in prayer because He knew the cross was ahead of Him and what His obedience to the Father cost. Redemption came at the highest price so that we now have the right to spend time alone with God. His prayers on the mountain remind us that God’s grace has restored us to Edenic intimacy. Imagine that! We can actually be alone with our Creator. We don’t have to go up a special mountain. The secret place of Psalm 91 can be anywhere we respond to His Voice.

Aside from Jesus’ solitary time on the mountain, there are two distinct instances when Jesus was truly alone. The first time the Spirit led Him into the desert to be tempted. The Lord spent forty days by Himself in the wilderness and then the devil came along to tempt Him. The second time Jesus hung on the cross, crying out in agony as He felt the crushing weight of sin separating Him from His Abba.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? Psalm 22:2

Because of Jesus’ atonement we now have assurance and promise that He will neither forsake nor leave us. Whether we’re in the wilderness being tempted more than we can handle or enduring trials more than we can bear, Jesus earned back our intimacy with the Father. God alone is forever with us; we are forever alone with Him.