Walking alone.

Native or First Nation people had, and some still do, the rite of Passage to travel into the Wilderness and to survive off the Land and to return alone to Manhood.

Early Christians, the desert fathers’ believed a life of solitude brought them close to self knowledge and to God.

We remember reading of Christ finding places where he might pray alone, such that once his disciples took a while to find him.

Perhaps when Paul went to Arabia it was to find himself for 3 years.

The little child here seems to be walking the streets at night in search of her worth and strength.

I remember walking back and forth outside our home, wondering why I felt worth less than I did before I began to know Jesus. Suddenly the stakes became higher and to know my worth meant to abandon all my alone-ness had brought my worth and to seek alone in my room my worth to Christ.

As I had grown up in the Australian Mid North Coast near Grafton in NSW there was plenty of time to my self because we lived some little way out of the village. My friends, too far away to visit, I saw at School. I took walks to the cemetery, pondering that in knowing Christ so much ought to, would change, if I allowed it.

Jesus, who walks by our sides never asks too much,, does not seek to empty us of our selves to make him” All in All” for there must be us and the value we learn to claim to receive him until we are full to the brim in him.

When I taught Scripture at Primary School we had our classes to fill a can with stones representing the Holy Spirit such that when the can ceased to rattle it was full of the Spirit. And we spoke of The Gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit that would follow from a life that did not rattle.

Do we, having given our determined worth to Jesus, still rattle?