spiritual discipline tuesday: solitude

Introduction to solitude

Outside of the discipline of journaling, the discipline of solitude has been one of the greatest influences in my spiritual development. I have read a lot about solitude, but the most beneficial education that I have received on the discipline has come from actually doing it. I began taking bi-annual extended soul.breaks (what I call my times of sabbath/solitude) in early 2002. Since then have been able to "get away" for extended solitude once every six-to-twelve months. Some of my most significant decisions were made during extended soul.breaks, such as the decision to marry my wife and the decision to begin planting Metanoia.

The following are some influential reads on the discipline of solitude, which should also be part of every Christian's library for more than just their discussions about solitude:

• Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together.
• Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline.
• Dallas Willard's, The Great Omission.

Solitude detoxes us from the noise around us which becomes so difficult to filter. It frees us from being around other people, so that we can truly "be" with the Lord without fear of what other people think, without their influence on our decisions and without their presence to distract us. It has also been my experience that Jesus uses moments of solitude to break me of treasures (possessions, people, etc.) which compete for my affection for him.

Solitude in the Bible

Like the disciplines of prayer, studying Scripture, worshiping, fasting and stewardship, you can find solitude all over the Bible. Many of the great persons of faith in the Bible spent time alone with God from David to Elijah; Daniel to Ezekiel; the apostles Paul and John, etc.. The Gospels tell of numerous stories about Jesus spending a night alone with his Father, or 40 days in the wilderness with his Father. For Jesus these were times of recharging himself spiritually, getting direction and guidance from his Father and finding strength to face his crucifixion.

The purpose of solitude in Scripture is not to isolate a person in loneliness, but to enable a person to truly be alone with God. There is a great difference between loneliness and aloneness. In the former instance a person is not just alone, but also lacks any significant connection with another person. On the other hand, to be alone is to be satisfied relationally while being alone by oneself. Viewed in this light the Christian disciple practices being alone in the presence of Christ--with whom they have a significant relationship--while literally being alone.

Practicing the discipline of solitude

1) First of all, you must plan for solitude. It doesn't just happen. If you don't plan for it, you will never experience solitude.

2) Secondly, beware of competition to the voice of God. Unplug your computer, turn of the wifi, turn off the cell phone, close the book, unplug the TV. Open your journal and Bible. Take a walk in the woods. Commune. Be. Breathe. This is the noise we are filtering out in solitude.

3) Thirdly, Solitude comes in many shapes and sizes: extended periods of time alone, a day of Sabbath rest alone, an afternoon alone, an hour alone. Regardless of the length of time, there are two overarching themes to practicing solitude:

1. It is a temporary, voluntary extraction from community and interaction with other persons, as well as other distractions.
2. It is a period of time intentionally set aside for focusing on Christ and communing with him.

4) As with all the disciplines, I suggest starting off with small moments of solitude before attempting an extended period of time of solitude. Perhaps set aside one hour/week. When you get used to that, set aside an entire afternoon or morning once/week. Beyond that, set aside one day each month to be in solitude with the Lord. Then, on a macro level, set aside a two or three day period of time once or twice a year for extended solitude. If you are not used to being alone regularly, an extended soul.break will be possible but extremely difficult.

5) Practice soul.breaks regularly. The longer I wait between soul.breaks, the more difficult it is to take a soul.break. Extended soul.breaks are beneficial for every single disciple, but especially for church leaders who need this time to regularly commune with the Spirit and just "be."

I have blogged about a few of my extended soul.breaks:

• soul.break 5.07
• soul.break 11.05
• soul.break 2.04
• soul.break 11.03
• soul.break 7.03

In my most recent post about soul.breaks, I offered insight into what I actually do when I am away in extended solitude. Rather than re-writing the entire post, I'll direct you there: soul.breakn' (May 2007).

Spiritual Discipline Tuesday series

The following bloggers have also posted about solitude (click the name to see the post): Art Rogers, Paul del Signore, Joe Kennedy.

Archive list of the disciplines (with links) and the bloggers involved in this series available via my series introduction post.

Comments

[sacred vapor]

I like the planning aspect to solitude that you touch on. good post.

[Kevin Griffin]

I Love to commune with God through nature. Theres nothing like spending a day or weekend in the woods just walking around and listening. AAHHHHHH

[Richard Lee]

WoW! dude this is pretty cool I just got back from hanging out in the wilderness with God and I see that you have written about solitude 2 days prior. God is really teaching me to unplug from the world and plug into Him. I'm interested to hear what God showed you on your soul.breaks.

Your Bro in Him,
Richard

[adam feldman]

thanks for the encouragement, paul.

kevin~ woods... god... hmmm........

richard~ heed the call, man!

[dave]

hey from roswell adam. good to see you are still crankin stuff out for all of us to munch on. seems like cool stuff you are talking about with solitude. probably my favorite description of solitude is, "to be alone with the Alone." poetic, vaguely mystic, yet relationally direct. much love for you, Kim, and Scott.