Spiritual DisciplinesSample

Solitude

I don’t know about you, but moments of quiet solitude feel incredibly difficult to find. There’s music in the background at the shops, television on in the next room of our houses, people talking around us, traffic noise breaking into our homes, machinery working away too. There’s a lot of noise breaking into our minds throughout the day. So how do we find solitude, and why is it good? The truth is, finding solitude takes being intentional. As a mum I’ve learned that not even the toilet grants me solitude, so I have to be mindful that solitude is what I need and to seek it out.

When I do, the words of Brooke Fraser’s song, None Like Jesus, help me understand the blessing that’s found. She says, "In the quiet, in the stillness, I know that You are God. In the secret of Your presence, I know, there I am restored. When You call, I won’t refuse. Each new day again I’ll choose. There is no one else for me. None but Jesus. Crucified to set me free, now I live to bring Him praise."

Freed from the input of the world around me, it becomes clear again the sole purpose for which I was created—to love God with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my mind, and to love my neighbors as I love myself. Or put another way, in the words of Psalm 46, moments of solitude allow me to "Be still and know that [He is] God." The blessing of this moment brings into sharp focus how good it is to be a child of God, to know His control over my life and the lives of those I love, to be reminded that God never changes—no matter what else might—to know that He is with me and so many other incredible gifts we have in Him. If this is your moment of solitude, what is it that God is reminding you of today?

Written by KATIE SMITH