Our willingness to give in to distractions is often prompted by our fear of missing out. We need to know what’s going on in the world, what’s happening with our friends, and what the next cultural craze is. We don’t want to miss out on anything. Could it be that our distractions are keeping us from missing out on the most important thing—God himself? In order to chase, we first have to cease. If we’re going to run, we first must be still. To give love away, we first must believe we are his beloved.

Our next-door neighbor Jennifer often makes us pickles. They’re about as close to perfect as a pickle could possibly be. Last week she brought over a jar and told me not to open it for forty-eight hours. I stared at the thing on the counter and my mouth started sweating. But I knew the key to the perfect pickle was time in the brine. In order for the cucumber to transform, it needed to soak in the solution. And then, slowly and imperceptibly, the brine-and-vinegar mixture would work its way into the cucumber, gradually changing it into a pickle.^*

My friend Fil has taught me tons about spiritual growth. Much like the cucumber sitting in the juice, Fil parallels our relationship to the Lord to “working on a tan.” Other than a slight lapse in judgment and a four-punch pass to a strip mall tanning bed—the week before our wedding—I’ve actually never had a tan. But I’m told if your skin isn’t as Scandinavian as mine, it doesn’t take much work to get one. Basically, all that’s required is to put yourself in a position where the sun can do the work.

When I carefully read the Gospels, I’m struck by how the Son of God regularly positioned himself alone before his Father. When we look at the miracles of Jesus, a clear pattern develops. It happens with almost everyone recorded in the Gospels, but let’s revisit one particular instance. When Jesus healed the leper, he shared in the man’s shame and touched the man’s skin, but there’s something else he did in that first chapter of Mark that frames the whole story.

In verse 35 of that first chapter, we’re told, “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” Three verses later, Jesus healed the leper.

As soon as the healing takes place, both Mark and Luke record the same thing about Jesus’s next steps: Despite Jesus’s plea that his miracles be kept secret, “the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed” (Luke 5:15–16; see also Mark 1:45).

Before the miracle, and after the miracle, what did Jesus do? He soaked in the brine. He sat in the sun. He spent solo time with his Father.

And it’s not only recorded in regard to the miracle of the leper; it’s all over the Gospels. Before he walked on water, Jesus spent the whole night in a prayer vigil.

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