Numbers 11:4-15 / Matthew 14:22-36 (Year A)
In life, we will certainly face setbacks.
As much as we will pray for peace and happiness in life, we also need to be prepared for sadness and grief.
That is the undeniable common experience in life, and everyone will have to go through it.
Even for Jesus, when He heard about the death of John the Baptist, He would have felt sadness and grief.
Jesus had a personal relationship with John the Baptist, and his sudden death would have affected Jesus.
So, Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and sent them off to the other side.
Then He went up into the hills by Himself to pray.
So, even Jesus need to come to terms with His sadness and grief.
We may not know what His prayer was, but going by our experience of sadness and grief, we could make some assumptions.
We would be angry with God, we would be frustrated, we would want to blame someone or we may blame ourselves in regret.
But we know that we need some time to let the pain and hurt subside before we can move on.
May the image of Jesus praying alone in the hills also remind us to pray for those who are in pain and hurting over their sadness and grief.
When we show compassion and understanding to those who are in sadness and in grief, then we too will be comforted in our time of need.