Solitude - Glenn Conjurske

Solitude

Solitude is a commodity which is as valuable as it is rare in modern society—-and it is valuable not only because it is rare, like some old postage stamp, but because of its own intrinsic worth. To be alone is wholesome. To be alone is profitable. But solitude is little known and little valued today. It is sought by few, and positively avoided by many. And those who do value it, and crave it and seek it, may find it hard to obtain in this world of hustle and bustle and clatter and clutter. And this is no doubt exactly as the enemy of our souls would have it. Modern civilization, under the undoubted control of the god of this world, has complicated our lives, engrossed our time, flooded our spirits with hurry and business, and cluttered our minds with a thousand thoughts which our ancestors never had occasion to think. Solitude is not so easy to come by now as it was a century or two ago, and those who would have it now must make the greater effort to obtain it—-an effort, however, for which they will be well repaid.

But some are no doubt ready to ask, What is the great value of solitude? First of all, to think—-to be alone with our own thoughts, far away from the hurry and clutter of the world—-to reason, to muse and meditate, to ponder and reflect, to search and study ourselves, to wrestle with the knotty questions which trouble our souls—-to remember—-to dream. “Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide.” (Gen. 24:63). He “went out.” He sought a place of solitude, to be alone with his thoughts.

But meditation is a lost art in modern society. Men do not seek the place of solitude, but avoid it, and if they are forced to be alone, they must have a radio or tape player pumping sound into their ears. And Christians, who would not listen to the world’s radio or recordings, must have Christian radio and Christian recordings, to mar their solitude and destroy their quiet. Is it any wonder that the age in which we live is so extremely shallow? Depth is impossible without meditation, and meditation is scarcely possible without solitude. The Christian radio and recordings are just as destructive of this as the worldly. They may not be so polluting, but they are just as destructive of solitude.

But there is another reason for solitude, more compelling than being alone with our own thoughts, that is, to be alone with God. Why is this so little valued? Alone with God! Alone with the Creator of the universe!—-who spoke the starry heavens into being with his word—-who painted the wing of the butterfly, and the petals of a myriad of flowers, and spoke their fragrances into existence with a word—-who by the same word breathed the melodies into the throats of a thousand feathered flutes. Alone with omnipotence! Alone with eternal wisdom! Alone with the fountain of living waters! Alone with LOVE, and with his ear bowed to my petition. What a wonder, that the human race—-yea, the church of God—-so little desires this!

But let none imagine that I mean to say that a man ought to be always alone with God, or that it would be wise or wholesome so to be. Man was created by God with a need within him for human companionship, and no amount of solitude with God can fulfil that need. It was of sinless man, free altogether from the unrestrained appetites which reign in the breasts of his fallen posterity—-it was of sinless man, privileged every day to walk in unhampered communion with the living God—-it was of sinless man that God said, “It is not good that man should be alone.” His communion with God could not satisfy his need for human love. To affirm that it can, or that it ought to, is not spirituality, but hyperspirituality, such as shall meet with only determined opposition from me.

But though it is neither wise nor good to be always alone, yet it is good to be much alone. We all take the Lord Jesus Christ as our example, and when we look into the New Testament at the life which he lived on the earth, we find him often in solitude.

We read in Matthew 14:22-23, “And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray, and when the evening was come, he was there alone.” Here we see him seeking solitude, and taking such measures as were necessary to obtain it. He had gone out into the desert in the first place to be alone. “When Jesus heard of it [the death of John the Baptist], he departed thence by ship into a desert place apart: and when the people had heard thereof, they followed him on foot out of the cities.” (Verse 13). Thus was he deprived of the solitude which he sought. When the day was far spent, therefore, he “constrained” his disciples to depart to the other side—-compelled them, for so the word means. That being done, he sent the multitudes away—-and retired to his beloved solitude—-“up into a mountain apart to pray, and when the even was come, he was there alone”—-and there he remained from evening till the fourth watch of the night. And here, by the way, is a hint for those who seek solitude and cannot find it. Should the business and company of the day deprive you of the solitude your soul needs and craves, the night is open before you. Your Savior often used it to be alone.

We see him thus again in Mark 1:35. “And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.” Again in Luke 6:12, “And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.”

Again in Luke 5:14-16. Having healed a leper, “he charged him to tell no man; . . . but so much the more went there a fame abroad of him, and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities. And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed.” His ministry always threatened to deprive him of his solitude, and this is no doubt one of the primary reasons that he so often charged those he had healed to tell no man. Yea, “He straitly charged them, and commanded them to tell no man that thing”—-that he was “the Christ of God.” (Luke 9:20-21). He was too thronged with crowds already. And as much as he loved the people, and as thoroughly as he was committed to serving them, communion with God was more to him than all of that, and he “withdrew himself into the wilderness” to obtain it.

Thus he sought solitude. “He went out.” “He withdrew himself into the wilderness.” “He went up into a mountain apart.” He sought solitude at the times and in the places where he knew he could find it.

So also have many of the greatest of his servants. I have often supposed that one reason for the great power of the early Methodist preachers is that they spent so much time alone. They were forced to it, by their itinerant system, but its effect was most beneficial. Without having been there to hear the difference, we can yet easily feel it in the following description of the earlier and later preaching of Henry Bascom, who left the Methodist itinerancy to become a college president: “Those who never heard him till after his soul had been caged in the cramped and narrow cell of scholastic study, and shorn of its freshness, strength, and power, by inhaling the atmosphere of a pent-up city life, can have but faint conception of what he was, when he communed with nature and nature’s God, and breathed the pure air of the mountain, in the bright and palmy days of his itinerant life.”

John Wesley, who stood at the head of all the Methodists, has this to say of himself: “It is true that I travel four or five thousand miles in a year. But I generally travel alone in my carriage, and consequently am as retired ten hours in a day as if I was in a wilderness. On other days [when not travelling] I never spend less than three hours (frequently ten or twelve) in the day alone. So there are few persons in the kingdom who spend so many hours secluded from all company.”

And Francis Asbury, the apostle of American Methodism, speaks often of his beloved solitude. I give a few extracts from his journal. The date of each, and his age when he wrote it, will be found in the notes.

“My mind is quiet and serene. I am now free from company, which is very pleasing to me, having found that much company is both disagreeable and dangerous.”

“Employed in reading and writing. I wish to be alone—-O how sweet is solitude!”

“I was pleased to enjoy the privilege of retiring alone to the cooling sylvan shades in frequent converse with my best Friend.”

“I feel it necessary to retire and humble myself before the Lord: I have been crowded with company, and have had much talk, and I find a solitary walk very agreeable.”

“How sweet to me are all the moving and still-life scenes which now surround me on every side!—-The quiet country-houses; the fields and orchards, bearing the promise of the fruitful year; the flocks and herds, the hills and vales, and dewy meads; the gliding streams and murmuring brooks; and thou, too, solitude—-with thy attendants, silence and meditation—-how dost thou solace my pensive mind after the tempest of fear, and care, and tumult, and talk experienced in the noisy, bustling city!”

“I too have my sufferings, perhaps, peculiar to myself: pain and temptation—-the one of the body, and the other of the spirit: no room to retire to—-that in which you sit common to all—-crowded with women and children—-the fire occupied by cooking—-much and long loved solitude not to be found, unless you choose to run out into the rain, in the woods: six months in the year I have had, for thirty-two years, occasionally, to submit to what will never be agreeable to me; but the people, it must be confessed, are amongst the kindest souls in the world. But kindness will not make a crowded log cabin, twelve feet by ten, agreeable: without are cold and rain; and within, six adults, and as many children, one of which is all motion; the dogs too, must sometimes be admitted. … —-poor Bishop! But we must endure it for the elect’s sake.”

“I was sometimes ready to wish I had no company, and no observations to make to hinder my constant communion with God.”

“I must take the road again. Oh, what sweetness I feel as I steal along through the solitary woods! I am sometimes ready to shout aloud, and make all vocal with the praises of His grace who died, and lives, and intercedes for me.”

“I retire to sacred solitude, and great and delightful communion with God.”

“So frequent are the visits of the people to talk or to do business, that I have not time to think or to pray, scarcely: I bear it all patiently. I preached at the Two Mile Stone, and retired to George Suckley’s. I resemble my Master in one thing—-I cannot be hid—-they find me out.”

“At Dover my dear friends who had not seen me for one and two years visited me and led me into conversation the whole afternoon. It is hard, think they, that we cannot see him; so it might be thought in every place; but do they always remember the hardship they impose on me? so we go.”

Thus did this man of God value his soltiude and communion with God, feel it when he was deprived of it, and seek it whenever he could. And is it any wonder that a man who speaks thus of his delight in being alone with God can speak with power to the souls of men when he comes out from his solitude? One last extract from his journal I give to the reader. I have kept it out of its chronological place, in order to present it last:

“Now, I say to my body, return to thy labour; to my soul, return to thy rest, and pure delight in reading, meditation, and prayer, and solitude. The shady groves are witness to my retired and sweetest hours: to sit, and melt, and bow alone before the Lord, whilst the melody of the birds warbles from tree to tree—-how delightful!”

Pardon me, friends, but oh, how my heart yearns when I read such a statement. Oh, how I long to be away from the busy world, in the quiet place of solitude, alone with God! But I do not only yearn and long: I seek it, and find it. And how I hope that the words which I here pen, and the words which Asbury penned two centuries ago, may inspire the same yearning and the same seeking in the hearts of my readers.

But I take my leave of Asbury, and turn again to the Scriptures. There can be no doubt that solitude was a great part of the preparation of men of God like Moses and David, who kept the sheep in the wilderness, and we might suppose that they turned again instinctively to that solitude when the heavy burden of caring for the flock of God rested upon their shoulders. Moses we see in such a time of solitude in Exodus 34. “And the Lord said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon these tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest. And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount. And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount.” (Verses 1-3). In spite of all of his responsibilities, Moses was ready on short notice for such a call, and “rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai.” (Vs. 4). “And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread nor drink water.” (Vs. 28).

Now picture some of our modern young people receiving such a call from God—-yea, some of our modern preachers. They would be pacing to and fro, or sitting with folded arms and restless spirit, looking this way and that, and saying, “It sure is boring up here! There isn’t anything to do! It’s too quiet here! This silence is too much for me! There’s nobody to talk to!” Thus they speak when they are alone with God! But we write not a word to discourage or reproach anyone. There are several factors which explain such a state of things. The first is, we all relate much more easily to our fellow mortals than we do to God. We understand them, and we need them. And they respond audibly and visibly to us. This is understandable. Well, then, take a book in your hand, and go alone with John Wesley or George Whitefield. For many years the best—-and often almost the only—-fellowship I had was with my books, and thus I got to know John and Charles Wesley, and D. L. Moody, and R. A. Torrey, and Sam Hadley, and Gipsy Smith, and C. H. Spurgeon, and Martin Luther, and William Tyndale, and a host of others—-for all these, being dead, yet speak.

But another factor is that we so little know God. We might have been bored in the presence of him who is now our best friend, before we knew him as we now do. Young folks in love, who can scarcely bear to be out of each other’s sight, may once have been bored together, before they knew each other. If we but knew God, how would we delight in his presence.

But perhaps the biggest factor is that we so little feel our need for God. We are too well provided for, too worldly-wise, and we fail even to feel our need to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” We too little feel the weakness of the flesh, or our need to pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” We feel no need to “watch and pray.” We are too self-sufficient, and we lightly take up burdens which angels would tremble to carry. The wisdom of years, and the scourging of the Father’s hand, will hopefully teach us better.

But to return to Moses on Mount Sinai. “He was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights.” “And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone.” (Vss. 29-30). When Moses came down from the mount, he had in his hands something from God to communicate to the people, and his face shone with the glory of God. So we will find it also when we have learned the secrets of solitude.

Glenn Conjurske