Solitude. Jesus engaged in it frequently. At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus went to the wilderness for an extended period of fasting and prayer. He also went into solitude when He heard of the death of John the Baptist, when He was going to choose His disciples, after He had been involved in healing a leper, and after His followers had engaged in ministry. This pattern continued into the final days of His life, when again He withdrew into the solitude of the garden of Gethsemane to pray. He ended His ministry, as He began it, with the practice of solitude.
Jesus taught His followers to do the same. And as He said to them, "Come away to a deserted place," He says to us still. Wise followers of Christ's way have always understood the necessity and benefit of solitude. It is, to quote an old phrase, the "furnace of transformation."
-- John Ortberg in The Life You've Always Wanted
#2272
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
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As I sat by my mother's bedside, hours from her impending death, I realized that we all die alone. I wasn't dying with her. At that moment, all of life as she knew it, was stripped away. The solitude of that time enabled her to come into His presence as she came into the world, totally surrendered and wholly dependant. Solitude is a way of becoming completely intimate with Him. Our worst enemy in solitude is that our mind wanders in and out of our surroundings. Only surrender gives Him the power to become one with Him. Our jealous God wants it all. What a Savior.
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Susan Heroux, Wisconsin