Daily Solitude
by Jared Johnson
Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest a while.
~Jesus
"Divert daily. Withdraw weekly. Abdicate annually.”
I don’t know who might’ve coined or popularized that phrase but I love it. A professor in my master’s degree program credited John Stott and discussed it in context of solitude.
When we hear “solitude” discussed, it’s usually in the annual sense. A good friend works very hard at scheduling one or two more-than-overnight trips to the woods during a year. He loves being out-and-away and each time he goes, talks about moments he met God during those, frankly, quick trips (48 hours or less).
When we think of “solitude” biblically, our minds also go toward unusual, big, noticeable moments like Moses on Sinai, Elijah en route to and then on Sinai, Jesus in Judah’s wilderness under temptation, His all-nighter prayer before selecting/calling His 12, etc.
”Mount Sinai” taken by Australian Frank Bloxham around 1920, photo later gifted to Royal Australian Historical Society, source https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Sinai_ca_1920.jpg / no restrictions
Indeed, all those rare occasions were profound moments that shaped entire lifetimes. They show that we have to deliberately, physically, move toward solitude, that solitude doesn’t happen by accident, and that we should approach solitude expectantly. When we “come close to God, He’ll come close to us” (James 4.8, NLT).
I’m not very practiced at the saying’s “annually” part (probably also weak on “weekly”), but I’m absolutely useless without the “daily” bit.
I love my evening listening. I’d far rather listen than read, and have made extensive use of YouVersion’s built-in audio Bible feature for a decade. (“As It Happened” is a favorite plan of mine; it’s a chronological 1-year.)
Though I sit in a specific place in my house with several people hardly more than an arm’s reach away, it’s a place of daily solitude. I go to my chair and open my ears so I might hear something God has to say to me. On some nights, I listen through a few chapters and then, quite literally, just “call it a day.” Other nights, I get bowled over by so many figurative 2x4s to the face.
Those evenings, irrespective of how hard they hit, don’t have ultra-profound, lifelong impacts like Sinai moments did for Moses or Elijah, but they’re anything but meaningless.
It’s a bit like another college professor said in a “hallway moment.” It was something like “I love my pastor and what he says but I had to remind him, his sermons are like my wife’s cooking; I can’t recall a single menu she’s ever made for me, but I certainly can tell the impact her cooking has had (patted his noticeable midsection) over a lifetime!”
We give our attention to outliers. We notice what’s rare, flashy and obvious, but ignore what’s typical, usual, accessible, right in front of us. We don’t have to hike Horeb and have boulders burned off by a firestorm to experience solitude. A chair at home will do. Daily little things are more important than rare, big splashes. After all, you and I both know Who said “If you’re faithful in little things, you’ll be faithful in large ones. But if you’re dishonest in little things, you won’t be honest with greater responsibilities” (Luke 16.10, NLT).
We simply have to be deliberate about it. Have you heard Susanna Wesley’s story? John and Charles Wesley’s mom would, the story goes, at various times pull her apron up over her head to pray. In an early-1700s household of about 10 kids (they had more but several died during infancy/childhood), getting a moment of quiet to pray was impossible without some kind of drastic measure! That simple physical act, changing her posture, moved her body a little bit but drastically moved her mind and soul toward her God. It wasn’t “solitude” as we typically think, but it was effective. Susanna had to lead her household without husband Sam for a period of time on a couple occasions and gave subsequent generations writings that are still studied (letters, commentaries, and written meditations). Those moments, awkwardly putting a cloth over her face with a dozen or so kids scrambling through a small house, had deep significance for her spiritual formation.
Just demographically speaking, you and I probably aren’t going to be live-Tik-Tok-ing our hike through the “solitude” of a Costa Rican rainforest anytime soon. But that doesn’t mean we can’t pursue and gain benefit from solitude in our living room, study, den, front porch, or back deck.
Solitude isn’t just quiet. Sam and Susanna Wesley’s home wasn’t quiet. Elijah’s Mount Sinai experience wasn’t quiet (1 Kings 19). The accuser wasn’t quiet when our Master was “in the wilderness” (both Matthew and Luke 4.1) facing his temptations.
Solitude isn’t loneliness either. Job was “lonely in a crowd,” in a way, when he sat in utter silence with Zophar, Eliphaz and Bildad. They could feel the emotional distance, isolation and pain coming out of his immense grief and they allowed him that emotional space by not uttering any words for several days. That’s loneliness, even though they were probably feet or inches away.
Solitude doesn’t have to be rare. Jesus “often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer” (Luke 5.16), and we follow His example. Most of us (80%), live in urban environments so it might feel like people are crawling on top of you, especially with suburban subdivisions putting only a few feet between houses. But we can all do something deliberate like an “apron over the head” to move us physically and spiritually toward a moment of solitude with God, and even do so any number of times during a day. (After all, an apron over the face wasn’t original to Mrs. Wesley – maybe she was inspired by Elijah!)
Divert daily. And if what you’re doing doesn’t feel like a daily diverting, then iterate; try something else.
Weekly withdrawal and annual abdication won’t matter if we can’t divert daily. Leaving our daily grind as-is and focusing on big “splash” moments is a sure recipe for burnout.
Mount Sinai’s summit is/was probably an amazing place, but God only directly asked/told a few of His people to ever go there (Moses plus some helpers [Exodus 24] and Elijah only by inference [1 Kings 19]).
Jesus did, though, ask His 12 to go with Him to an uninhabited, “un-apportioned” place (Mark 6.31). (For the record, Mark 6.31 and Luke 5.16 above both use the same Greek word which can mean “unpopulated, un-apportioned, wilderness” and similar.) Granted, Jesus and His 12 didn’t make it to such a spot in that moment but you and I both know that doesn’t mean His invitation evaporated into the ether. He “often withdrew” and we can, should, and need, to do the same.
Jesus asked His 12 to go with Him into solitude, so yes, we pursue solitude to be with our King. But Jesus asked His 12, not any single one of them. So even though we think of “solitude” as utterly lonely, there’s something worth noticing about a streak of “corporate” in this discipline. There is a good and right role for solitude to play in a small, trusted group of fellow believers.
Abdicate annually. Withdraw weekly. But my goodness, please don’t miss your daily diversion to solitude.
Other possible location of ”Mount Sinai;” Har Karkom in extreme southern Israel.
source https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Karkom_Winterboure_Waterfall.jpg by user שועל
Let’s go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest a while.
~Jesus
