Solitude Practising The Way

Welcome to the Avenue podcast, where we're passionate about unleashing your God-given potential through the life-transforming power of the Gospel. I'm Raquel. And I am Matt. And today we're going to be continuing our series on practicing the way of Jesus as we look at solitude. Would you like to read the passage for us today, Matt? I'd love to. So this is Psalm 139, and we're reading from the New Living Translation. O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I'm far away. You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. You go before me and follow me. You place your hand of blessing on my head. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand. I can never escape from your Spirit. I can never get away from your presence. If I go up to heaven, you are there. If I go down to the grave, you are there. If I ride the wings in the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me and your strength will support me. I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night, but even in darkness I cannot hide from you. To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to you. You made all the delicate inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex. Your workmanship is marvellous, how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Each day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are your thoughts about me, oh God. They cannot be numbered. I can't even count them, they outnumber the grains of sand. And when I wake up, you are still with me. Oh God, if only you would destroy the wicked. Get out of my life, you murderers. They blaspheme you, your enemies misuse your name. Oh Lord, shouldn't I hate those who hate you? Shouldn't I despise those who oppose you? Yes, I hate them with total hatred, for your enemies are my enemies. Search me, oh God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. Yeah, I love this psalm, it's so wonderful just to be reassured that God is always there for us, his presence, we can't get away from it. It's just really comforting to know that he's there, and he cares about our anxious thoughts and our little things in life. Yeah, I love this as well, David writes this, and it's clear how much he's thankful that God knows him and loves him and cares about him. When you think about all the other pagan gods back in the day who didn't really care about people, and people believed that they were asking them to have child sacrifice and stuff like that, and then you look at this, and it's just such a different depiction of God, how he made us before we were born. So intimate, so parents-like, and so, yeah, just wonderful. You place your hand of blessing on my head, can't imagine a pagan god doing that. Yeah, absolutely. What do you think about the fact, David says, you know when I sit down or stand up, you know my thoughts even when I'm far away. What are your thoughts on God knowing us that well? I think that God made us, and as it says, you knit me together in my mother's womb. I think he knows us so intimately, he knows us so deeply, that he knows what we're going to do. He knows us like, yeah, the back of his hand, you know. But he still gives us the choice to sit down or stand up, and yeah, he knows our thoughts even when we seem far away. I love that, I think about the prodigal son, you know, he goes and he squanders everything that he owns, but even then, God knows he's there, and he's caring about his thoughts. And then when the prodigal son returns, it's not this thing of like, oh, you squandered your inheritance and you did all this bad stuff, it's this loving embrace. And so if God knows all our thoughts, like it says, you know, God knows our thoughts before we even speak them aloud, you know, as we're talking this week about solitude, what is sort of the importance of solitude, if he knows all our thoughts before we even say them? Yeah, it's a really good question, and I'm going to ask you a question in return. What can we describe as, like, how can we define solitude with God? Like, what does that mean? I think solitude is a really important thing, it's a really significant thing. And I think there's a difference between being in solitude and being alone, you know, taking that intentional time in the quiet to just be with yourself and God. For me, like, I think solitude is the freedom from inputs. You know, you can personally, like, I'm an introvert, and I know I like my alone time, I like to have time by myself to recharge, like social batteries, and just, you know, just like spend some time with myself. But solitude is not just that, solitude is actually, you know, not having anything you're listening to, anything you're reading, just sort of being there in total, like, quiet and silence. And I think it's a really important practice, like, to practice. Yeah, definitely. And I think that we don't do it enough, to be honest, like, and I know I don't do it enough, just spending time with God. And I heard this thing, you know, it's like, if you had a relationship or a marriage, and you never spent time with your partner, it wouldn't indicate that you have a healthy relationship, right? Solitude is the time that we spend with God, it's the time alone with God. You know, but you can spend time with God in a community, like in church, but you can also have that time alone with Him, where you've set aside time just to be with Him, just to be in His presence. And I think that the reason that, you know, we don't do it as much as we should is because it's scary. It's scary to not pick up your phone when you're alone, you know, I know the first thing that I do when I get home from a place is, you know, well, if I have a spare time in the morning, maybe I'll open my phone, watch some Instagram Reels, waste like an hour of my time. I don't know, like, what's your screen habits? When you get the report from your phone every week, how much does it say? Would you care to share? Oh, it's bad. Yeah, mine's bad as well. I'm happy to say it's, I don't want to share it, the exact number, but I'm never happy with it. Even if it says it's decreased, I'm like, that's still not a good amount of time. Yeah, exactly. And I feel like I try and justify it by being like, oh, you know, I've read on my phone, that accounts for that. Or like, I've just been listening to music with the screen open. But it is true. Like, we do, you know, just scroll. And I think in a way that's sort of, you know, almost like a bit of escapism, you know, when we're stressed. It's become so common because there are always so many, there's so many options, there's so many things to do. Yeah, you can learn Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, whatever. You can listen to podcasts, you can listen to music. And it's not like any of these things are inherently bad. But I think we have lost a lot of the sort of natural solitude as a society that we used to have. Like, if you think about, you know, before phones, before technology, even before like cars and stuff, you have just all this natural solitude. You might be just walking places. There's no Spotify back in the day. Exactly, exactly. You know, if you're a builder, it's not like you had like music pumping all the time, you'd just sort of be working. And so that there was a lot of time to sort of just have thoughts. And even if you were like with other people or just working or whatever it is, there was sort of that opportunity for your brain to just think through things and process things. And I feel like now it's absolutely completely possible to completely banish solitude from our lives. Like, we have that ability. It's such a noisy world. Yeah, it's such a noisy world. There's always an input. There's always something going on. Yeah. And you don't need to be silent because there are so many distractions. Yeah. Yeah, that's so true. Yeah. The stat that I heard was 87% of people sleep next to their phone. And a large majority of them will check their phone first thing in the morning. You know, last thing of the day. I'm definitely guilty of that. Yeah. Yeah. I've, like for a year or two now, I've moved my phone away from my bed and keep it somewhere. But I still use it for my alarm. And I want to stop doing that because it means it's the first thing I check because I'll have to get out of my bed to turn off the alarm, but then I'll go on my phone first thing. So yeah, I think that, you know, if you want to start decreasing phone usage, not only solitude, but also getting it away from your bed is a good start. Just overall health. Yeah, overall health as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I heard this thing as well, which, you know, you might be thinking, like, I already don't feel like I read the Bible enough or pray enough. And I feel like that as well. And, you know, why would I add solitude to this list of things that I don't do enough? And, like, honestly, like, you don't have to try it if you don't want to. We're not forcing you to, but it's actually such a good practice to start doing because it'll actually kind of rewire your brain. You know, the first time you're going to do solitude, I can tell you this, the first 15 or 30 minutes, you'll be thinking a lot about things. Like, you'll be just thinking and you'll be distracted by your own thinking. Like, I know that whenever I've tried to do it, you know, maybe I set aside 15 minutes and I don't feel like those 15 minutes are effective in getting closer to God. And then after those 15 or 30 minutes of you thinking, you're actually going to just get bored. There's going to be another 15 to 30 minutes of boredom. But then apparently, and, you know, I haven't practiced this as much as I'd like to, but I've definitely, in COVID, I was doing it a lot more than I am now because there's more time. But, yeah, like after that boredom stage, you're going to start hearing God. In that silence and solitude, you're going to start hearing God. Which is so powerful. And like, I think about what David says about God's presence, like, you know, He knows everything about us. He knows our thoughts. Wherever we go, He's with us. He created us. He loves us and is always thinking about us. Like, why wouldn't you want to spend time with someone like that? And I think when we, I noticed for me personally, when I don't set aside that time, I begin to not really value it as much. And I begin to just sort of drift. And I, yeah, I heard this thing recently, and it was talking about, you know, drifting sort of in your spiritual life. And, yeah, the guy who's talking was saying, you know, if you're walking like 500 meters to your friend's house, and you drift off your course by one degree, that's not really going to make a difference. You're still going to end up there. If you are, you know, if you're in a plane and you're flying from, let's say, Melbourne to London, and you drift by one degree, and you keep that one degree, you're going to end up somewhere totally different. And so I think when we don't intentionally set aside time for things like this, like, yes, praying, reading the Bible, all that stuff is great. But I think this is such an important practice as well, to actually practice just sitting there. We kind of, yeah, as you said, we go through all our thoughts, and then it gets to a point where we sort of run out of things to think about. And all that's left is, you know, for us to listen for God and for Him to speak to us. And I think it's such an important practice. And us, like, as followers of Jesus, you know, we want to emulate what He did. And this is what He did. Exactly. Yeah. So many times. So many examples of Jesus going into the wilderness, going into the quiet place. And I think that, yeah, it's lost in this busy world that we have. Yeah. And I think if you're struggling with, you know, even like hearing about this, and you're saying, well, yeah, I just can't add another thing to my plate, I want you to think of solitude as not adding something, but it's actually taking everything away. What the core of it is, is taking things away. It's taking the stress out of your life, essentially. Like, just being like, I'm going to spend three hours in this, you know, beautiful place. Maybe it's nature. Maybe it's a nice place that you have in your house. Nice little nook. And just spend time with God. It's taking away everything else. It's not adding something to an already hectic world. Right? Yeah. Yeah, I agree. There's this quote from Mother Teresa that I really like. And she says, like, we need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. And yeah, I just really loved that, because I think it's like you were saying, you know, we need that time to be alone. And not even like, yes, spiritually, absolutely. But even just physically, mentally, it's so important. And in a world where there is so much noise pollution, like everywhere you go, you know, you go to the shops, there's music always, like throughout every shop. There's different music in some shops. The overall shopping center has music. And again, like, I love music. It's not like there's anything wrong with it. But there is, you know, if you're on public transport, you're often listening to something. If you're in the car, you'll be listening to something. If you're at work, you know, it's noisy, people are talking. There's just always things going on. And so I think having this time to sort of just step back from everything and take a break is really, really crucial. 100%. I heard this other thing that was talking about biblical meditation or solitude in comparison to New Age meditation. And what it said is New Age meditation focuses on transcending the self and exiting history. And then after you do that, you can then enter the presence of the divine. Whereas solitude and biblical meditation, it's about you're not transcending the self. You're confessing yourself. And you don't exit history. You process it. So when we bring ourselves to God and we practice solitude, we come with all our baggage, all our trauma, all our history, all our ugliness, right? And yeah, just like that prodigal son I was talking about before, God comes to us. He puts his hand on our head and he replaces that with his goodness. And yeah, I just love that image of you're not transcending yourself. You're confessing yourself. And you're not exiting history. You're processing it. Yeah. And I think, you know, that's what David's doing when he says, like, search me, oh God, know my heart, test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you and lead me along the path of everlasting life. Like you don't get to that point where God can speak to you if you're not, you know, sitting and listening for him. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, like, obviously God can speak to us through a variety of ways. But, you know, if you're not listening, if you're just constantly filling your life with things, it's not going to be as obvious. And he's, you know, you're missing out on that opportunity to just like hear God's voice and even just like sit and spend time with him. It seems kind of, I guess, not countercultural, but it seems sort of crazy that, you know, you can sit there and not be doing anything sort of outwardly. But then there's so many changes that go on internally. Yeah. And I want to say, like, if you, you know, if you do this and it takes a while, it's not going to take as long next time. It's actually, if you think about it as a relationship, which it is with God, right? Like if you spend time with God and draw closer to him, the next time you see him, you're still going to have that rapport. You're still going to be that close. It's going to, yeah, it's kind of like the more that you do this, the shorter those times of thinking and boredom are going to be. And the longer the time of time with God will actually, you'll let it change your life. And yeah, I think that, yeah, as you said, this is what David says here. Yeah. Search me, God. Know my heart. Yeah. It's just so true to what we're talking about, this solitude idea. And are there any practical tips that you would maybe give to someone hoping to implement this practice of solitude in their life? Yeah, I'd say don't rush it. Like I know that in the past when I've tried this, I've set aside like 15 minutes and been like, yep, 15 minutes. We can get that done in 15 minutes. But I don't think that that's going to work. I think that as soon as you put a short time limit on it, it's definitely not going to work. And yeah, I think that set aside like maybe three hours, maybe a whole day of solitude. If you want to start smaller, maybe three hours. But yeah, just spend a day with God and see what happens. Like turn off your phone. It's okay. If someone needs to reach you, they can come to your house. I don't know. Like, yeah, it's okay to turn off your phone for three hours out of your day and just, yeah, see what happens. I would say also don't get distracted by things around you. Just remove any distraction. You know, maybe you want a notepad. But if you're going to bring a notepad, make sure you're not like drawing. Don't do stuff that is going to distract you from the purpose you're there. If you've got the Bible, don't just read parts of the Bible because like use it to get closer to God and make sure that you're not using it as a distraction. Yeah, you don't want it to just be for entertainment. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And like this is the thing, because I think a lot of times reading the Bible, like, yeah, absolutely, you can read the Bible. And some parts of it are, you know, really fun, really entertaining. And absolutely, it's not like God will not speak to you if you're not being like in solitude. But I think it's just a practice that allows you to rid your mind of a lot of distractions and, yeah, worried stresses of life. And especially if you, I found for me, if I make it a time where I don't have any other commitments that I'm like thinking about or that come afterwards, it's so much easier to do. Yeah. Like I might do my devotion at the start of the day because I like to start off my day with something. And it's something I can do when I'm sort of waking up and, you know, all that sort of stuff. But in terms of solitude, if I do that at the start of the day, I'm just constantly stressed because I'm thinking about I have this assignment and I have work at this time. And, you know, how am I going to fit it all in? But if I do it at night where, you know, I can go to bed as late as I want. And that's all that I have to do. Then I feel like that just takes the pressure off and actually enables you to do it well. That's so true. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. Like find a quiet place, like free from distractions, you know, whether that's out if you're walking somewhere or whether that's your room or your car or whatever it is. But yeah, find like a quiet place, you know, make it a time where you have the time to do it. And I think be consistent as well. Like you said before, it's like any skill. You're not going to be perfect at it the first time. And it's probably going to suck some of the time as well, because we're not used to just sitting there and doing nothing. But I think the benefits are just so worth it. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. A hundred percent. Give it a go. This is your sign. If you're hearing this right now and you feel convicted in your heart, give it a go. Thanks for joining us on this episode of the Avenue Podcast. We hope it adds value to your pathway group discussion this week. Join us next week as Jeremy and Laura talk about Sabbath and the practice. Yeah. Love you guys. Bye. Bye. Bye.