Recently, through my experience with an ectopic pregnancy (see last post), I was confronted by the
Holy Spirit who led me to admit that I lacked in certain areas of spiritual
disciplines. My spiritual life took a turn that changed my daily devotions with
God and helped me to get closer to Him.
This summer I was reading a book called Invitation to a Journey: A Road Map for Spiritual Formation by M. Robert
Mulholland. In it I found out a lot of things about my current spiritual habits
and those that were missing from my life. One of the Spiritual disciplines it
spoke of was Solitude and Silence. I had never before tried to be in solitude
and silence before the Lord as a daily discipline. This is embarrassing for me
because I have been a Christian most of my life, yet it was not a discipline I
possessed. “This is what solitude is: in the silence of releasing control of
our relationship with God to God, coming face to face with the kind of person
we are in the depths of our being…facing brokenness…acknowledging our
bondages…and naming ourselves to God as this kind of person.” (Mulholland 140).
Solitude is the place where it is just you and God. It is
completed by silence. When you practice solitude what’s most important is that you
do nothing. Yes, nothing! There’s no Bible studying or music playing; it is a chance
to focus on your Intimacy with Jesus, to disengage from your daily tasks and
the people you interact with, in order to concentrate on the Lord alone. In
solitude we don’t try to make anything happen. We just bring our naked self to
the Lord to be with him.
As I read through the book, God began to speak to my life. He
was leading me in a direction I never thought I would take. “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.” (Matthew 6:6). God took me
to a quiet place where I would learn to be in solitude and silence with Him. Learning
this new spiritual discipline was challenging, but being in the medical
situation I was facing, I didn’t have many excuses not to try. The first time I
tried it I only lasted about 3 minutes before my mind began to wander off to my
daily to do list. I felt a little bit frustrated but understood that the reason
why it is a discipline and not something we can just do one day out of the
blue. To be disciplined at something requires practice and I knew that I would
have to do this daily in order to remain in an attitude of complete silence
before the Lord.
I can’t say I have become an expert at it. I can’t say that I
last hours in silence and solitude. But what I can say is that when you begin
to practice this discipline every day something supernatural begins to happen
to us. When we go into God’s presence in solitude and silence, we release
control to the Lord and He is then able to show us what’s inside our heart. “For
God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.” (Psalm
62:5). He can show us things that we’ll
never see when we are distracted with everything else going on around us; this
is why we all need time of solitude and silence with God.
It's so hard to practice solitude, especially with small children. But I guess it is a choice for me. I can choose to get up earlier and pray while everyone is asleep, or I can sleep for an extra hour and not do what I should. I will pray that God helps me to do this.
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