Luke 5:16 “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Today's episode talks about the importance of solitude with God. It lists 6 benefits of solitude, as well as three things to consider when practicing solitude, and 3 reasons why solitude is necessary for spiritual formation. I pray you make more time for solitude with God this Lenten season. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The Power of Solitude
Luke 5:16 “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”
The other day, I was listening to the Abiding Together podcast. The episode was called Living in Tension: Solitude and Community. This was a really interesting idea. It is important to keep in mind that we need both solitude and community. Today I want to talk to you a bit about why you also need time for solitude. No matter if we are an introvert or an extrovert, we all need both community and solitude. The solitude is not where we spend time by ourselves watching Netflix and eating ice cream. We all may need that sometimes too, but the solitude they were talking about on the podcast was that time when you go away from everyone and spend time with the Lord. Jesus did this often in the Bible. He fed the 5,000 and then went off to be alone with the Father. He did this so often in the Bible that people would go after Him and try to find Him. They wanted to know what He was doing.
No matter how close we get to the Lord, this solitude will always be necessary. There is always more with the Lord. We can always go further in with Him. We can always grow closer to Him. Encounter Ministries says you can always go further up and further in. This alone time with God is essential. This is the time when He can fill us up. This is a time when He can show us what He has planned for us. God will use us if we allow Him to. God will help guide us in our lives if we allow Him to. If we never stop and spend some time with God, just us and Him, when do we learn about His plan for our life? When do we learn about what He wants us to do?
Things in our life will go much better when we spend quiet time with God, asking Him what we should do before we do it. In order to recognize the Lord’s voice, we need to make sure we are spending time regularly with Him. In order to have an intimate relationship with him, we need to spend time with Him. Maintaining our relationship with God is similar to maintaining our relationship with others. We need to invest our time and our attention to it, or it will fizzle out. I found an article that talks about the 6 Benefits of Solitude with God by John (Click Here for full article)
Here are 6 benefits of solitude with God
1.) Exposure to God’s wisdom
God is all-wise and all-knowing. You can’t spend time alone with Him and remain ignorant. Acts 4:13 says that when the religious leaders saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled; and they realized that they had been with Jesus. You can’t spend time with the LORD and not be wiser than you are now.
2.) Recipient of divine perspective
Through Scripture and time with the Lord, God gives His people the capacity to see all of life from His vantage point. Having God’s perspective allows us to rise above the daily grind of life and the petty actions of others and realize there is a sovereign God who rules over His creation and directs the activities of mankind.
3.) Renewal of physical and spiritual strength
When you spend time alone with God, you not only gain renewal of physical strength, but you also enjoy spiritual refueling and refreshment. Isaiah 40:31 says “those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”
According to Psalm 68:35a, the God of Israel is “He who gives strength and power to His people.” Spend time alone with God, and He will give you power and strength.
4.) Beneficiary of Godly guidance
God promises to guide us all the way through our lives. The psalmist writes, “For this God is our God forever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end.” (Psalm 48:14). But how do we receive this guidance? Psalm 48:9 says: “meditating on your unfailing love.” The secret of guidance is alone time with God – meditating on His word. Wow, what a gift we receive in our alone time with the Lord!
5.) Experience conviction and correction
Psalm 17:4-5 says: “I have followed your commands, which keep me from following cruel and evil people. My steps have stayed on your path; I have not wavered from following you.”
One of the great proofs that the Bible is really God’s inspired Word is its unique ability to convict men and women of their sins. Often God will use his word to correct us and lead us onto a steady path gently.
6.) God’s great reward
God rewards time spent alone with him in prayer. “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners so that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father, who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:5-6)
God’s will, His nearness, His goodness, His love – rewards freely given to those who commune with him.
Make solitude a priority! All of the money in the world cannot buy the rewards God longs to give you as you commune with Him. As we get busy in this Lenten season don’t forget to prioritize alone time with God this year. It’s the best gift you will ever receive; one-on-one communion with your heavenly Father.
You might wonder, with all these benefits, why would anyone avoid solitude? We can avoid solitude because when we think of solitude, we think of being alone, and there are all sorts of reasons why we wouldn’t want to be alone. We might think that when we are alone, our mind will think of all the things we have been trying to avoid. Maybe we have trauma from our past. Maybe we have things in our lives right now that we are trying to avoid. We might be afraid if we have solitude, we might have to confront all the things we are trying to avoid.
However, when we avoid solitude, we are avoiding deep connection with the Lord as well. God is calling each one of us to make the choice to find time away from everyone else and to meet Him there in that silence. Almost all the main players in the Bible spend time in solitude with the Lord. I read an article that had three things for us to consider when practicing solitude. The article was called How to Practice Solitude. I didn’t fine an author. (Click Here for the full article)
Three things to consider when practicing solitude:
1. Solitude doesn’t require silence
Silence and solitude are complementary disciplines that aid our communion with God. But while silence almost always requires solitude, solitude does not necessarily require silence. We can use our time of solitude for prayer, verbal meditation on Scripture, singing psalms or hymns of praise, or any other form of “noisy” activity. Solitude doesn’t require either silence or a hushed solemnity.
2. Solitude requires planning
Our lives tend to be filled with people and events, making it unlikely we’ll accidentally stumble into solitude. Being alone with God requires planning. Choose a place where you can be intimate with God and free from distractions. This “special place” doesn’t need to be special — it just needs to be a place where you can remove yourself from the world for as much time as needed.
3. Solitude requires time
On most days, the best we can do is to get away alone for a few minutes or even an hour. We should cherish these times and guard them carefully. Yet while these solitary moments are necessary, they’re hardly sufficient to meet our need for closeness with our Creator. Commit to finding creative ways to be alone with God for extended periods of solitude, ranging from a few hours to a few days.
Three reasons solitude is necessary for spiritual formation
1. Solitude amplifies other disciplines
We can carry out almost every other discipline in the company of others. We can pray, meditate, and worship almost anytime and in any place. But practicing those disciplines in the context of solitude helps us achieve a greater focus and augments our efforts.
2. Solitude is not about being alone
Normally when we use the term solitude, we’re referring to the state of being alone. But solitude also has the meaning of “absence of human activity.” This is what we mean when we refer to the discipline; the purpose is not to be alone but to experience the absence of human activity so that we can more fully experience the presence of God.
3. Solitude exposes our idols
We might tell ourselves we prefer God’s company to that of any other person or thing in the world. Solitude puts that claim to the test. By being alone with God, we get a clearer view of the idols of our hearts, and we are presented with an opportunity to repent.
As you can see, there are many reasons why we need to make time to be in solitude with God. I pray you will find extra time during this Lenten season to be alone with the Lord and let Him fill you up.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to be with everyone listening to this episode. Lord, we thank you for wanting to be in a relationship with us. We thank you for wanting to spend time with us. We thank you for filling us up in that time alone with you. Lord, we ask that you show each one of us how you want to be in a relationship with us. Show us where and when you want to meet with us. Lord, if we are struggling to find time to be with you, we ask you to put on our hearts when in our schedule we can add more time with you. We want to be with you, Lord; we are just struggling to make it happen. Please help us. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to seeing you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!