After facing a sharp confrontation by the Jews, which culminated with them trying to stone Him, our Lord Jesus did something interesting. He revisited the place where John was baptising at first, where He himself was baptised by John too, and stayed there — maybe a few days or even weeks.

Why did He go back to that place?

Well, the obvious answer is that He had to let the threats cool off a bit. But that could not have been the THE reason why He went back to that place. After all, there were many places He could have gone to, which were not as far as ‘beyond the Jordan’, and just hid there. But He decided to travel all the way back to where He first began His ministry. Why?

No doubt the time our Lord Jesus remained there, He could regain His energies, refocus His vision, remember why He came, and what He was here to achieve. In other words, He went back right to the beginning, and that helped Him to stay on course.

We too need to go back to our starting point sometimes — to remember our original vows, our first plans, the long-term goals we set when we got married, started a business, or started serving Jesus.

The troubles of life, the attacks we suffer, persecutions, and the setbacks we experience, all contribute to our discouragement and tempt us to divert from our goals. If we don’t keep reminding ourselves of what we originally set out to achieve, we will stray from the course and hit the water.

If you must, go back to where it all began — be it your first love with God, your wedding vows, your plans and goals, the day you were saved, etc. Take some time to refocus and remind yourself of what you are really trying to achieve. But don’t let anything divert you from your goal.

“I will reach my goal.” — Jesus, in Luke 13.32

P.S. About that second verse I stumbled upon, I’ll be writing about it here soon. Stop by again in the near future.