Living Life Immediately
I was standing in our tiny kitchen in Illinois talking on the phone, while little Mary Evelyn waited eagerly for me to get off. With her mommy tethered to a landline with a cord, our resourceful little girl got pen and paper. Not knowing how to write words yet, she drew a rebus–a drawing of a girl, the letter E, and an arrow pointing up–and handed it to me. She wanted me to HER–E–Up! Today, about 26 years later, it is framed and hanging beside our phone in the pantry.
The Gospels don’t seem to portray Jesus as ever in a hurry, but He certainly lived a full life. The first chapter of Mark uses the word immediately ten times. Here are four examples from verses 21-34, which all happened on the same day.
Verse 21–They went into Capernaum; and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and began to teach.
Verse 22–Immediately the news about Him spread everywhere into all the surrounding district of Galilee.
Verses 29-30a–And immediately after they came out of the synagogue, they came into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was lying sick with a fever . . .
Verse 30b– . . . and immediately they spoke to Jesus about her. And He came to her and raised her up, taking her by the hand, and the fever left her, and she waited on them.
After sunset that day, people brought to Jesus those who were ill or demon-possessed. The whole city gathered at the door of the place where Jesus was. He healed many diseases and cast out many demons.
Whew! What a day! Jesus knew how to handle the stress of it all.Â
In the early morning,
while it was still dark,
Jesus got up, left the house,
and went away to a secluded place,
and was praying there.
Mark 1:35, NASB
Oftentimes we wish that we could finish one crisis and then just breathe a little while before another crisis happens. We have no guarantees of that, but we do have a Friend Who understands and a Father Who is waiting to listen to us tell Him all about it. We can HER–E–UP and do that immediately anytime.