God’s timing
May 8
John 6:15Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
This happened immediately after Jesus had done the miracle with the two loaves and five fishes. People had followed him to the mountainside because they had seen the multiple healings that Jesus had done. Jesus was clearly in the zone at this time because we see:
he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” 6He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
So Jesus was very in tune with the people around him at that time. And he read their minds / knew what they wanted – they wanted to take him by force and declare him king. He withdrew because it was not yet his time. It must have been tempting to have the recognition because in so many ways he was not recognised.
Jesus shows he is not manipulated. One of the things we do as Christians is we try to manipulate God by faith. We use what we believe is faith and we try to make God do things based on this faith. But God withdraws when it is not his time and when we come with motives that are not in tune with him.