Solitude
As spiritual disciplines go, the practice of solitude comes very easy to me. At least, the desire for solitude does. I like people. I've even learned to love people. But (and I say this with the greatest love for those of you I spend regular time with) I love being alone. The problem is, and I daresay that this is a problem for most people, time alone is very hard to come by. And the irony is that those people who are alone many hours of the day tend to absolutely crave being with others.Solitude must be planned for. Solitude as a spiritual discipline requires more than a twenty minute drive to work or an hour in the park. The whole point of solitude is to spend extended time with The Creator, to get away from human contact and find restoration in prolonged exposure to God and God alone. It is in our human dealings that bad habits are formed, habits of envy, anger, lust, selfishness. When alone with God, it becomes impossible to feel pride.
The other advantage of extended solitude is that it makes the practice of other disciplines far easier. When alone, if I want to talk to someone, it has to be Someone. Even those who shy away from long periods of prayer because they find their mind tends to wander will find their minds wandering back if there are no other distractions. Even worship becomes sublime when one is alone.
Of course, God wants us out in the world. Solitude, like any discipline, can be taken to extremes. But if Jesus needed 40 days, it makes sense to think that we might need a weekend. How exactly to find that weekend becomes a matter of priority and understanding. Above all, we have to realize our need to spend time away, time alone.
posted by Thurman8er @ 12:30 PM
4 Comments:
Yes we do, and when we do it for the right purpose, those we love become even dearer to us.
Have you been talking to Randy Harris? Agreed on the time "solitude time." We complain sometimes about teenagers' need to be engaged by something or someone all the time. I find myself living in that mode as well without even realizing it.
BTW - do you have a video that goes with this post? :)
I can feel peace oozing from this post. Thanks so much, and I am so in agreement with you. Even Jesus needed that time alone with His Father.............
I also cherish my "alone time". I often long for the "discipline" I once was active in...that being in just sitting down at a table, and turning off my mind to all words and thoughts except for the simple supplication for God to speak to me. A meditation of sorts, during which, after several minutes, I felt a sense of peace and openness. Then I began to "journal" whatever came to me, and that was a time when I was able to do my best "self-critiques" - my "laundry list" of faults and such that I needed to turn over to God.
Solitude IS the first step to opening ourselves to God's voice, and to not be afraid of what we hear. It seems that the older I get, the more cluttered my mind becomes, and it's harder to sweep away the clutter to achieve this openness. I must try to go back to this discipline. Thanks for the reminder. And thanks to for the simple but powerful sentence from meowmix..."Even Jesus needed that time alone with His Father." Maybe this is why I love the song we rarely sing these days, "Walking Alone At Eve", - I think my grandfather lead this song in church every time he got the chance to do so.
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