Silence and Solitude

"Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed."

~Mark 1:35

About a year ago I wrote a piece called Clear Your Head!  I wrote about how I took a day off, and packed a cooler with water, took my Bible and my journal and went out to a nice, quiet, wooded spot in a local park. My head was full, and I needed to sort a few things out.  And I needed a lot of help from the Lord. 

My life was just too busy, and too noisy, and too distracted, and too chaotic to hear what the the Spirit was saying to me, and I knew I needed to find that quiet spot and stay there until I had worked through the problems I was having.  I needed guidance.  So I went, and I prayed, and I pondered, and I listened, and spent most of the day sitting at a picnic table doing that. No phone.  No iPad.  Not a single thing to distract me.  And that one day made a huge difference.  Much more than I would have every guessed.

Jesus modeled this practice in the Bible nine times.  He got away from people and noise and distractions.  He went where it was quiet.  And he spent time praying and talking to God.  

I have repeated that trip at least once a month since--sometimes more often.  Sometimes I spent a long time there.  And sometimes just a couple hours.  But it's a much different experience from the time I spend reading the Bible each day, or taking quiet time in the morning to pray.  These trips are more about relationship building, because it gives me a chance to lay it all out, and think about it, and let the Lord know what I think about these things.  And very often, especially when I'm dealing with a problem I can't really get my arms around, something will come to me I hadn't considered before.  In those quiet moments.  In the calm.  In the peace of those woods, I find a solution I hadn't thought about before.  

And sometimes I go out there to work on one particular thing, and I find myself focused on something completely different.  I pay attention to that as well.  That tells me that there's something way more important to the Lord than what it was I'd gone to work through that morning.  

We are living in a world where we're distracted all the time.  Most people check their messages and social media before they even get out of bed in the morning.  And from that point on, it's distraction after distraction after distraction.  We're doing two or three things at once, and checking the weather, and our bank account, while music is playing in our earbuds.  And if, by some wild chance, a quiet moment opens up in our day when we could take a breath and think clearly, we grab that phone and play a game or shop on Amazon or text our friends.  

We never give ourselves a chance to be silent.  To be unoccupied.  To think through those decision we make on the fly.  To really think through the problems we're having.  We don't talk to God about them.  Having a relationship with God is more than a devotional in the morning.  More than a quick cursory prayer when we're stepping into a situation we're nervous about.  More than showing up on Sunday morning at church.  Communicating with God should be easy for us, because He is always with us.  His Wi-Fi never goes down.  There's not a place in the universe where we can't get a signal through.  And we don't even need a device to connect.  But we pass those opportunities up. 

Is it any wonder we often feel so alone?  Is it surprising at all how many people feel distant from God?

We live in a connected world, yet the result is often we wind up disconnecting from the one relationship that's the most important.  

Have a look at your schedule.  Is there a little time in there for God this week?  If your experience is anything like mine has been, you'll find that time you set aside to be alone with God is the most productive time on your calendar.  

Try it and see.  

~Pastor Todd Creason