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With Nature and With God
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go into the fields, to meditate in the quiet valleys, to hold communion
with God on the mountainside or amid the trees of the forest. The
early morning often found Him in some secluded place, meditating,
searching the Scriptures, or in prayer. With the voice of singing
He welcomed the morning light. With songs of thanksgiving He
cheered His hours of labor and brought heaven’s gladness to the
toilworn and disheartened.
During His ministry Jesus lived to a great degree an outdoor life.
His journeys from place to place were made on foot, and much of
His teaching was given in the open air. In training His disciples
He often withdrew from the confusion of the city to the quiet of
the fields, as more in harmony with the lessons of simplicity, faith,
and self-abnegation He desired to teach them. It was beneath the
sheltering trees of the mountainside, but a little distance from the
Sea of Galilee, that the Twelve were called to the apostolate and the
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Sermon on the Mount was given.
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Christ loved to gather the people about Him under the blue
heavens, on some grassy hillside, or on the beach beside the lake.
Here, surrounded by the works of His own creation, He could turn
their thoughts from the artificial to the natural. In the growth and
development of nature were revealed the principles of His kingdom.
As men should lift their eyes to the hills of God and behold the
wonderful works of His hand, they could learn precious lessons of
divine truth. In future days the lessons of the divine Teacher would
thus be repeated to them by the things of nature. The mind would
be uplifted and the heart would find rest.
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The disciples who were associated with Him in His work, Jesus
often released for a season, that they might visit their homes and
rest; but in vain were their efforts to draw Him away from His
labors. All day He ministered to the throngs that came to Him, and
at eventide, or in the early morning, He went away to the sanctuary
of the mountains for communion with His Father.
Often His incessant labor and the conflict with the enmity and
false teaching of the rabbis left Him so utterly wearied that His
mother and brothers, and even His disciples, feared that His life
would be sacrificed. But as He returned from the hours of prayer
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that closed the toilsome day, they marked the look of peace upon
His face, the freshness and life and power that seemed to pervade