Mar 3-9, 2024

Loneliness happens to you. Solitude is being alone on purpose
(Eyre Ch 6 "Getting Alone with God").

Leaving the Room

Imagine being in a room with a loved one and watching television while other people carry on conversations. If you want to enjoy being together and have a personal conversation of any depth, you have to get up and leave the room. When we choose solitude for quiet time, we are choosing to leave the room to be with our loved One (Eyre).

What kind of things prevent you from enjoying the company of your loved one(s)?

What is Solitude?

If you had 1-2 minutes of free time, what would you turn your attention to?

How much time do you spend on your mobile devices? What apps do you spend the most time on? Apple users can check “Screen Time.” Android users can check “Digital Wellbeing.”

Solitude is the discipline that calls us to pull away from life in the company of others for the purpose of giving our full and undivided attention to God. To enter into solitude is to take the spiritual life seriously. It is to take seriously our need to quiet the noise and constant stimulation of our lives, to cease the constant striving of human effort, to bring ourselves back from our absorption in human relationships for a time in order to give God full access to our souls. 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 (Acts 17:28). In solitude, our thoughts and our mind, our will, and our desires are reoriented Godward so we can become less and less attracted by external forces and can be more deeply responsive to God at work within us (Barton). Would you characterize your lifestyle as ‘hurried’? What keeps you running so fast? What compels you to overwork and overstimulate?

In solitude, we discover how addicted we are to noise and activity and achievement as ways of shoring up our sense of identity and keeping us distracted from our own inner realities (Barton).

The practice of solitude opens us to the experience of being loved by God beyond all of our activity, our performance-oriented drivenness, and all that we think we can do for God. This experience of God’s love is deeply transformative, for as we find ourselves loved unconditionally in God’s presence, we can love others in return (Barton). Do you have enough emotional margin to love and care for others?

Solitude in the Bible

All the great heroes of the Bible spent time in solitude and many of them for extended periods. All of them emerged from their times in solitude as changed people.

Abraham left his home to follow God (Eyre).

Jacob wrestled with God’s angel in the wilderness (Barton).

Moses first encountered God in solitude at a burning bush. He received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai after spending forty days alone with God. He met God daily in the tent of presence, alone. In the end, Moses ascended alone to a mountain to get a glimpse of the Promise Land and pass on to the other side of death (Eyre).

As a shepherd boy, David learned to trust God as his shepherd while watching the sheep alone in the fields. Even as king, David wrote psalms of deep thought and faith from his times of solitude (Eyre).

Elijah experienced the life-giving presence of God in solitude after he became so depleted in ministry that he was convinced he could not go on (Barton).

Paul spent three days in the solitude of his blindness after God knocked him off his horse to get his attention. In solitude, he experienced a radical conversion (Barton).

Jesus himself regularly left his life in the company of others to go to a solitary place and pray—sometimes all night! (Barton)

Can you think of any other biblical characters who sought times of solitude?

Loneliness versus Solitude

What is the difference between loneliness and solitude?

Despite what we may think, loneliness and being alone are not synonymous. Loneliness is being alone and experiencing an inner emptiness. The other side of loneliness is solitude. Solitude is being alone with an inner fullness. If we are to have regular quiet times, we must learn to move from loneliness to solitude (Eyre). Can you describe this inner emptiness or inner fulness in greater detail?

What day of this week, what time of day, can you enter a time of silence and solitude?

Practicing Solitude

The key to spiritual practices is to approach them as ways of making ourselves available to God, not as times of hard work and human striving. In solitude, we choose whatever practices help us to give up control so that God can take the initiative with us (Barton).

Get away from (1) people, (2) entertainment, and (3) responsibilities.

Things to try:

• Silence

• Reflect on Scripture

• Self-Examination

• Journaling

• Spiritual Reading

• Walking Meditation

• Worship

• Artistic Expression

Works Cited

Barton, Ruth Haley. "Solitude." Dictionary of Christian Spirituality, edited by Glen G. Scorgie et al., eBook edition, Zondervan, 2011.

Eyre, Stephen D. Drawing Close to God: The Essentials of a Dynamic Quiet Time. InterVarsity Press, 1995. A Lifeguide Resource.