Hello, friend, welcome to today's encouragement from the Our Daily Bread Devotional

family.

The devotional for today was written by John Blaze, and he's titled it, Spending Time

with God.

A river runs through it is Norman McLean's masterful story of two boys growing up

in western Montana with their father, a Presbyterian minister. On Sunday mornings, Norman and his

brother Paul went to church where they heard their father preach. Once Sunday evening rolled around,

there was another service, and their father would preach

again. But between those two services, they were free to walk the hills and streams with him,

while he unwound between services. It was an intentional withdrawing on their father's part

to restore his soul and be filled again to overflowing for the

evening sermon. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus is seen teaching multitudes on hillsides and cities

and healing the sick and diseased who were brought to him. All this interaction was in line with the

son of man's mission to seek and to save the lost.

But it's also noted that he often withdrew to lonely places. His time there was spent

communing with the Father, being renewed and restored, to step back once more into his mission.

In our faithful efforts to serve, it's good for us to remember that Jesus often withdrew.

If this practice was important for Jesus, how much more so for us?

May we regularly spend time with our father, who can fill us again to

overflowing.

This is today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading. It's taken from Luke

chapter 5, verses 12 through 16. While Jesus was

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