Scripture:
And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a
desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had
no leisure even to eat.
Mark 6:31
And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the
mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.
Matthew 14:23
And rising very early in the morning, while it was still
dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.
Mark 1:35
Our Sunday School class is on a journey of celebration of
the 12 Spiritual Disciplines. Each week
we learn about a Discipline and spend the following week practicing it. Some are familiar and comfortable. Some present more of a personal
challenge. This week's discipline is
solitude. The Discipline of Solitude is the practice of our “waiting for God”
to act and complete His will, so our focus is on Him and then He fills us up.
This is an aspect of private prayer and worship, but instead of doing the
talking, we do the listening. This means
we still ourselves to hear what God has to say.
In solitude God begins to free us from our bondage to human
expectations, for there we experience God as our ultimate reality—the One in
whom we live and move and have our being. In solitude our thoughts and our
minds, our will and our desires are reoriented Godward so we become less and
less attracted by external forces and can be more deeply responsive to God’s
desire for us. Solitude is a means, not an end.
It is not to isolate us from others.
It is to line us up with Him so that we are able to work with and in
others. God wants us to work in
community, but to function in community we need to be healthy.
We are bombarded daily by the “noise” of our world and our
own thoughts. We move at a pace that many days leaves no time for solitude or
silence. The most difficult aspect for
us has been to release our agendas and our need to control and become more
willing and able to create space for God's activity rather than filling every
minute with our own. Reliance on our own
thoughts and words, even in our praying, can be one facet of a need to control
things, to set the agenda, or at least to know what the agenda is even in our
relationship with God. Instead, we are
trying to “Be still, and know that I am God...” (Psalm 46:10)
“I offer no guaranteed method to obtain God's presence, for
God alone governs that. Solitude and
silence merely supply the state most conducive to attending to the still small
voice of God” (Philip Yancey). So during
this Lenten season we will continue to “practice” solitude, daily reading
Scripture and devotionals, praying and then setting some time aside to quiet
ourselves and just be there communing with God without saying a word.
Nancy and Mike Allee
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