"Solitude"
(5^th message in an 8-part series, "An Ordinary Day With Jesus")

Sermon Transcript for March 3, 2002

By Rev. Mike Beck

Scripture Reading: Mark 1:35; Mark 6:30-32

 

I want to thank you for the kind words concerning this sermon series. It’s been especially gratifying for many of you have remarked about the very practical nature of it. It’s helping you where you live. And again, I want to be very careful to give credit to John Ortberg, who is the teaching pastor at Willow Creek and to Ruth Barton for they are the authors of this study. I just get the privilege of sharing their wonderful stuff with you on Sunday morning.

We’ve been talking about how to listen to God. And the key ingredient for that to take place, just like in any relationship, is to spend time alone with the other person, in this case, the Lord - times of solitude where we are able to hear more clearly the still, small voice in the midst of the constant noise of the world around us. Solitude is a time in which we withdraw intentionally from the company of others in order to give God our undivided attention. We try to shut out the external stimulation in our lives and allow ourselves to become quiet on the inside. But finding time to do that and spending time alone with God is a struggle for most of us for a variety of reasons. Let me share some of those with you, some of the barriers that keep us from connecting with God:

Distractions: The endless distractions around us.

Exhaustion: For many of us a barrier is exhaustion. We’re so tired that when we get a moment of quiet we fall asleep.

An endless list of things we need to do:

Wandering thoughts: Or when we find that time of quiet, we find our thoughts wandering off in a hundred different directions.

A sense of obligation instead of enjoyment of God: And then another barrier that I want us to look at for just a second is that we approach it with a sense of obligation instead of a sense of a privilege of enjoying God for a few moments. How does it feel to be in the presence of someone who feels obligated to be spending that time with you? It’s not much fun, is it? But when you are in someone’s presence who is really enjoying the time with you and who listens – a whole different set of emotions.

The Bible tells us that God is a personal being and desires to be with us which is a pretty amazing thought. And God wants people who enjoy being with Him, look forward to, and even plan expectantly just to be in His presence. But unfortunately, if we’re really honest, many of us approach our times with God like going to the dentist – we know there’s value in that, we know we need to do that, but we kind of do it with a sense of dread!

My prayer, my goal this time of worship today is that you might go from here viewing your quiet times or devotions or solitude – whatever word you put to it – as a wonderful OPPORTUNITY that God gives you, not an obligation or something you’ve got to do. I want to quickly suggest eight things that can help you in experiencing more solitude in your life.

1. Find a quiet place that is free of distractions: Now, let’s be realistic. If you are a young mother with children at home that place is hard to find. If you can get ten minutes of it a day you may be doing well. But when Jesus was here on earth, He modeled the importance of finding a quiet time and place to be alone with His Heavenly Father. One of the versus Dan read from Mark it says, "Very early in the morning, Jesus got up, left the house…" Now why did he leave the house? Because there were too many distractions in the house. "…went off to a solitary place, where He prayed." Now, if Jesus, who was fully God, felt a need to spend time alone with His Heavenly Father, how much more do you and I need it?

But having said that let me make this important observation. As you seek to apply these principles, you’ve got to do it in a way that fits your personality and how God has wired you together or you’re going to fail. For instance, I have tried numerous times in my life to get up early in the morning for my quiet time. I have never been able to succeed because I am not a morning person! I might drag myself out of bed at 5:30 a.m. sit down in the chair, put my Bible in my lap, and be asleep ten minutes later. It’s not how I’m wired. I seldom pray on my knees with my head bowed and my eyes closed. It doesn’t fit my personality. Most of my prayer time is dialogue with God as I’m going about the activities in my day. One of the great times of solitude for me is time in the car when I’m driving from one place to another. Sometimes with the radio off, sometimes with the radio on tuned to a Christian station listening to Christian music or a good sermon. In fact, my first district superintendent when he left he was asked what he was going to miss most. And his answer was very interesting. I’ve never forgotten it. "The times of driving alone in the car from place to place."

Mickey is over in Illinois with her sister so I’m alone in the house. I had a wonderful time of solitude last night from 8:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Do you know what I did? From 8:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. I watched "Touched By an Angel" and from 9:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. I watched Robert Schuler on "The Hour of Power". And as I was watching I was listening for God to speak to me through things I was seeing or through words of witness or through the music or whatever it might be. And I was conversing back with God based upon where my mind was being led. We’ve got to find a place free of distractions.

2. Quiet yourself in God’s presence: We need to quiet ourselves. Too often we rush in to our times alone with God and it’s kind of normal that we do that because we’re living such hurried, frantic lives that when it comes time for our quiet time or our devotions that becomes hurried and frantic also. But we need to try and quiet ourselves in God’s presence.

One of the unexpected blessings of the voice problems that came on me ten years ago, in fact it is almost exactly ten years ago this week, was a terribly confusing, fearful time in my life to make my living with my voice to all of a sudden not in a sentence of seven words, four of them wouldn’t come out. And I wondered what in the world was going to take place. A dear friend of mine very early on in the process gave me this little plaque that sits on my dresser. I see it every morning when I get up and every evening when I go to bed. Psalm 46:10, "Be still and know that I am God." And in a way that I would never have been able to predict the affliction of the voice forced me, a very activist kind of person, to slow down. There are periods related to where I am at in the injection cycle where speech is very difficult or strained. And in those times I have to withdraw. I have to become quieter, do less. And I’ve discovered God took an affliction and used it for something good – to quiet a person who’d become too busy to spend time alone with God.

3. Tell God what you need: In our times alone with God we need to tell God what we need. I went to my concordance this week and looked up the simple word "ask" and I was amazed at how many times we are told in Scripture to ask God for what we need. And I wonder in our relationship with God, if that we perhaps fail to receive what God has for us because we fail to ask. Now don’t turn God into Santa Claus. God’s answer to our request can always take one of four forms, 1) yes; 2) no; 3) one we don’t like--wait; or 4) I have a better idea.

I e-mailed Aaron this week because he was really hoping his fiancé would get on the Lion King tour with him. They are getting married in November. That would have been real idea. But she didn’t get the job. So I e-mailed him as his father and his pastor and said, "Aaron, we were all praying. That made a lot of sense to us. But I’ve looked back on my life on numerous occasions when it didn’t make sense at first, and I discovered the fourth way God answers prayer – to say I’ve got a better idea." I said, "That may be what’s going on now." But, we need to ask in our times alone with God. Tell Him what we need.

4. Use Scripture to listen to God: This principle is so important because God has given us this book as a way to speak to us. When you read the Scripture, read it slowly; read it deliberately; visualize it in your mind, smell it, taste it, look for phrases or words that stand out and speak to your heart. That’s what’s called "praying the Scriptures" is all about. Our reading of Scripture and our prayer ought to be intermixed. But that won’t happen if our attitude is, "How quickly can I get to the end of this chapter so I can check off another punch box from my spiritual to-do list.

And again, from a very practical matter, remember that although all Scripture is given by God and is profitable to us, all Scripture is not created equal in terms of its benefit to our lives. You can slow down all you want on the "begats" and on the Old Testament ceremonial law and still have a hard time hearing from God! So be wise in planning how and where you spend time in Scripture.

5. Be honest and real in God’s presence: That means getting comfortable enough with God that you can bring to Him whatever you are feeling - if you are angry, if you are fearful, if you are frustrated, that you bring that honestly to God instead of putting on this pious, spiritual mask thinking that somehow God didn’t know that you are angry even though you were trying to smile the spiritual smile. Some of you have heard me say that we greet one another so often with the question, "How are you doing?" And then the other person will respond, "Fine!" What does "fine" mean? I’ve always said when we greeted people with that question if they had to answer with a 1-10 we’d then know something about what was going on in their life. "I’m about a nine today!" "I’m about a two today." I’m going to be careful with the next thing I say. Do that same thing with God. Bring to Him in your quiet time, let’s be honest, bring to Him what you are feeling. And have you ever found your mind wandering in prayer? And did you feel guilty about it? You set down to pray, you start through that formula, and then your mind starts wondering. One of the most profound insights of this message that came to me was this: Have you ever thought about what you really needed to talk to God about was the things your mind wandered to? Now think about that. We feel guilty that our mind has wandered, but is it possible that wandering thoughts instead of being a barrier to prayer might actually be a guide to prayer of what’s really going on that’s important in our life, that we’re anxious about, and that we need to talk to God about? Learn to be honest.
   
6. Respond to what you hear God saying to you through prayer or journaling: The spiritual discipline of journaling…If you don’t know what that means, journaling simply means what’s going on up here and here gets transferred to pen and paper if we write it down. Although it’s not an easy habit to develop, it can produce tremendous results. When I was in seminary and experiencing extreme anxiety and depression and finally got the nerve to call one of the counselors and set up an appointment for some times to go in and the counselor I got hooked up with was John Binder. Some of you may know John. John’s deep in to psychotherapy. And he made me journal. I had every day to write down what’s going on up here on paper so we could talk about it. He was also in to dream therapy, which has value. But I would have a dream at night, Mickey didn’t like this…I would have a dream and I woke up I had to go to the typewriter and write it out what the dream was about so I wouldn’t forget it so John and I could talk about it the next week. In our times alone with God, taking the prayer and moving it to journaling, moving the thoughts to pen and paper can be invaluable.
   
7. Listen for God’s word of grace: In your times alone with God, listen to God’s word of grace. God wants to guide our lives. He calls us to a life of holiness so we can be a witness to others around us. But having said that maybe what we need to hear the most is His words of love and grace. I am a sinner, I’m in need of forgiveness, I know I messed up. I’m not sure God is all that glorified or His Kingdom advanced by believers constantly telling themselves how bad they are. When we’ve blown for the up-teenth time and we’re sure that God no longer cares about us or loves us, maybe during this Lenten season we need to look up to Heaven and ask God, "How much do you love me?" And see His arms outstretched on the cross dying for us and say, "I love you, just love me." In our times of quiet with God, we need to hear God’s word of love and grace.
   
8. Close with expressing gratitude and commitment: When someone is taking time to be with you, spend time with you…in fact, in our day the most precious, valuable gift that anyone can give to another person is not their money it is their time. When someone has given us their time, what do we do as we part? We normally thank them for spending that time with us and we set another time to get together. Do the same with God. When you close your time of solitude, give thanks that the creator of the universe wanted to spend time with you and plan to spend time again that way and leave that time with a sense of deeper commitment to follow Him, not out of duty, but out of the heart of love.

Let’s pray: "Heavenly Father, each of us is here because there is a deep-seated hunger in our hearts for You. But that’s how You made us, isn’t it? We stand in awe that You desire to spend time with us. Help us in the midst of our busy schedules to take time for solitude. We commit ourselves to doing life in Your name and in Your presence. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen."

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