In the church through the ages, there has been a quiet consensus that without places of solitude in our lives we cannot live a life of prayer, or by extension, the Spiritual life at all. By solitude what is meant is a time and place alone for God, and God alone. If we are agreed and believe that what God has called us to is a personal relationship with Him, without time to speak with and listen to him that relationship will wither. That is the nature of all relationships, and even more so with Him. If we believe that God is involved in our lives, actively present, then we need a place and time to be attentive to our LORD on a daily basis.
This week continues a series on prayer designed to lead us closer to Christ, As we begin, we ask the Lord to "teach us to pray." It is our first prayer, our beginning. Taken from Luke 11.1, it is a prayer of desire, our desire for Him. This episode also looks at Matthew 6 that of our need of finding a private place for prayer, where we can be alone with the Father.
Morning Mercies is a podcast dedicated to the deepening of trust with God, our maker, through a relationship with Jesus Christ. He has become our Master, our teacher, and so we follow Him with our lives, be they what they are. They are brief, and follow the simple format of scripture, meditation, and prayer.
Morning Mercies are posted several times a week on all major podcast platforms, and are presented by Michael Mullen.
Matthew 6
5 “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, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 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.
Amen.
In the church through the ages, there has been a quiet consensus that without places of solitude in our lives we cannot live a life of prayer, or by extension, the Spiritual life at all. By solitude what is meant is a time and place alone for God, and God alone. If we are agreed and believe that what God has called us to is a personal relationship with Him, without time to speak with and listen to him that relationship will wither. That is the nature of all relationships, and even more so with Him. If we believe that God is involved in our lives, actively present, then we need a place and time to be attentive to our LORD on a daily basis. Jesus almost said as much in our passage for today when he said, “Go to your private room and, when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in that secret place.”
Jesus practiced solitude all through his time of ministry. At six different points we see Jesus in the Gospels separating himself from the disciples for the express purpose to pray by himself with the Father. In Luke 4 he does so to prepare for the beginning of his public ministry. At that time he prayed for forty days, and with fasting, in the wilderness. In Mark 6 he he encourages the disciples to practice a time of solitude after being sent throughout the land preaching. He does so so that they may recharge from a time of ministry. In Matthew 14 he separates himself for a time to pray in order to grieve over the death of John the Baptist, his cousin. In Luke 6 He spends all night alone in prayer, because the next day he was to choose his disciples. At Gethsemane he went aways off from the disciples because his heart was in anguish over what was to come (Luke 22). Sometimes he went away from everyone in order to simply be with the Father. This was not an isolated event, but a pattern of His living (Luke 5).
In looking at the example of Jesus living out and defining the Christian life, I am driven to ask a question: if time alone with the Father was necessary for Christ in his living this human life, how necessary is it for us?
A key for Christ in living this life meant for him being in the world without being shaped by it. It is often said that Christians are to be in the world but not of it. The reality of this seems to be lacking in so many of us, but in Jesus is perfectly lived out. This was made only possible in his being within the presence of the Father alone, in prayer. There he received peace, and strength, direction, and encouragement that he would never of had by himself. There he came into a freedom to surrender his life to obedience, which led him to the cross. It is only in solitude that this freedom can grow. There he grew in a knowledge that all the power he had was given to him, that all the words he ever spoke where from the father, and that all the works he ever did were not really his, but the work of the oner who had sent him. In the alone place Jesus was made free to obey.
In following the example of Jesus in this way we will discover that it is in that solitude that our being is more important than having, and that that in God’s eyes we are worth more than the result of our efforts. In that alone place we learn that life is not some thing we have to be grasped, but a gift to be shared. It’s here where we come to know that the healing words we speak were first a gift to us, and that the love we express to others is part of a greater love we received in solitude with our Father.
To bring solitude into our lives requires of us that we make a choice to go there.This is a serious and difficult discipline. Many of us cry out for time alone, but when that possibility presents itself, we become apprehensive. We are comfortable with our filled or stuffed lives. What are we to do without that constant sound of busyness? What are we to do if we do not hear the constant hum of distraction coming from the television, or our job, or our entertainments? How can we put away the phone and become unplugged? To do so often opens up to us an inner chaos of doubts, fears, memories, anger, and accepted addictions, that to be alone with them is disturbing. But here is the truth, that in choosing to go to that place of solitude, we will invariably see how we are out of kilter, out of balance, and messed up. We need this, in order to turn away from the deadly noise that attacks our soul, and tries to keep us insulated from the one who would speak life to us. Still, this is why so many of us give up in regards to prayer. We don’t want to see ourselves so clearly. There are so many reasons not to be alone.
If we persist in our choice to be alone with God, we will be rewarded. Soon these outer distractions will diminish, and we will see them for what they are in the light of the grace and mercy of God. But we must persist, and choose daily to be with Him.
For most of us, this will require that we become intentional in this, and do some planning. I have a friend that sets aside time for prayer alone with The Father in this way: an hour every day, an afternoon every week, a day every month, and a week every year. He does this because he truly wishes to grow in his spiritual walk with Christ. I am working on praying an hour every day. Maybe that should be our starting point. Maybe you will want to start with ten minutes as you start the day. Whatever it is God will honor it, if it is given to Him alone.
By intuition, if not by explicit thought, we know that it is important to spend time in solitude. This desire is often the first indication that the presence of God’s spirit no longer becomes unnoticed. As we find ourselves being emptied of so many worries and fears, we begin to realize that w e are never really alone. God is with us all along.
I wish to say one more thing about solitude, and that is its relation to community of our life together.
Solitude is not a private thing as compared to the public place of fellowship, or our relationship we have with brothers and sisters in Christ. It is more than just a healing place, or a place of personal restoration. Solitude and community belong together. Each needs the other, like the center and circumference of a circle. Neither can exist without the other. Solitude without the community leads to loneliness and despair, and community without solitude leaves us as a person without substance. Solitude engenders community because it leads us to empathize with others. When we give ourselves to solitude, we are in fact contributing directly to the growth of the community. When we go to a place of solitude, we take the others with us in our concerns. When we listen to how God feels about the other, his heart becomes our own. It is also there where our hearts grow larger, and love can truly become the rule of how we see others. This is absolutely essential to community, and without it the church can become something akin to a social organization so common in the world.
So, in closing, I want to encourage you to take upon yourself the choosing of a place and time for you and God alone. Make it a daily habit. Practice it consistently. Coupled with the reading of God’s Word, nothing is more essential.
Let us pray.
Prayer