SOLITUDE

No one knows it better than those who dare speak for God, that we live in a noisy world and if we’re not careful and intentional we will begin to blend into the noise. Rediscovering the gift of solitude may be one of the Savior’s divine gifts to us.

Solitude is to purposefully withdraw from the noisy world in order to be with God. It is not to be alone. It is to be alone with God. It is to be with Him in such a way that His presence envelopes our very life and exposes us for who we really are. It is the place of honesty, the place of truth, the place where denial is not allowed. It is the place where we confront in ourselves all that is not of God, and come to the act of unconditional surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Solitude is the place both of struggle and of release. That is to say, in the solitude, where the struggles of our lives are faced, Jesus comes to us and we discover that in reality we are not fighting ourselves. We are fighting God. Yet, in the discovery we find that God is not fighting us. He is present to reveal to us that if we will let go, He will dismantle destructive forces which fight within us and without us, and give us a healed and whole, new self.

Solitude is the place where we learn to say, “for to me to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21). So, the solitude becomes what Henri Nouwen calls the “Furnace of transformation,” where we are set free from the entanglements of “The seductive compulsions of the world” (The Way of the Heart).

Solitude is the place where we choose to run away no more, but to stand and fight the enemy within. It is the place we go to die to things which are destroying us, and from which we emerge saying “…the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me? (Galatians 2:20).

Our journey is calling us to find a way to get alone with God. He is our Creator. He is our best Friend. He is our Confidant. He is our Savior. He is our Counselor. He loves us with an everlasting love. May God help us come within His wonderful embrace and find healing and laughter and joy and peace. May we find in Him, purpose and meaning and value.

Listen. Do you hear the still small voice? “Come to Me, and I will give your rest.”