For those with a people-person personality, solitude may feel like an unpleasant idea. Truth be told, in our busy world, solitude can be a bit intimidating.

For others, it is a welcome relief. It may feel like “rest at last, ahh. . .” But we’re not talking about just doing nothing. Our intention in this spiritual discipline of solitude is what our pastor encouraged us to do last Sunday—”Get Alone with God.”

“Praying?” you ask? Being silent? Yes, that, but more like listening, silently listening. As one lady wrote in our Christmas devotional booklet, when you rearrange the letters in Silent, you get Listen. That becomes more active than passive.

Richard Foster says, “Without silence, there is no solitude. Though silence sometimes involves the absence of speech, it always involves the act of listening.”

Mother Teresa puts it another way. “Sometimes we think that we don’t hear God’s voice. Not because He isn’t speaking, but because we have the volume of the world way too loud.”

For me personally, I talk first just to settle in, giving praise, thanks, and concerns. Then I ask Him to help me focus and listen. That’s the hard part because my mind can stray. I often have to ask again, “Help me focus. Help me to hear you, Lord.”

Several years ago I was actively striving to hear Him. After a few minutes, He brought to mind a hymn. “Come Thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace.”

That was my heart’s desire for him to come. I pictured a fountain of water springing up. Being a musician, I sang the words which fit perfectly with the next phrase.

“Tune my heart to sing thy grace.” In other words, connect my heart to the song.

“Streams of mercy, never ceasing, call for songs of loudest praise.” This fountain continually flowed with mercy in my mind and demanded loud praise.

Still in the music mode, “Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flamming tongues above.” As I invisioned a host of angels singing his praise, tears began to flow. This fountain flowing with love bore my full attention as I sang the last line. “Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it, mount of thy redeeming love.”

I knew parts of the last verse, but had to look it up in my hymnal. I sang it through with more blinding tears.

“O to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be! Let thy grace, Lord, like a fetter, bind my wondering heart to thee; prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love; Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.”

It became one of many moments of true praise in my life. He hadn’t told me to go and do some wondrous work of love, He just wanted me to love and praise him deeply.

Those kind of moments don’t come every time I pray, but over the years, I’ve come to hear him speak to me in my mind and heart. Often, it is an act of service He wants me to give or a new direction He wants me to go or just a sense of his nearness.

Like young Samuel was taught to say, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.”

“Be still, and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

What is a memorable moment you have had in a time of solitude?

~ Joyce ~