The Discipline of Silence + Solitude

“come away by yourselves to a lonely place & rest a while” Mk. 6:31

What is silence and solitude?

•Intentional separation from internal and external noise in order to settle my spirit and hear God’s voice.
•Making space for things and choose to not fill it.

Why incorporate solitude & silence as a discipline in your life?
Our lives are filled with so much audio and visual noise, busyness, and self-centeredness that we become
spiritually disoriented, spiritually fatigued, and spiritually deaf. Silence and solitude creates an opportunity
to get away from all of this. We need to shut down all the external and internal noise so that we can settle
our spirit and hear the voice of God. It’s vital. This puts yourself in a place where you can hear the voice of
God.

Jesus did it. He had absolutely no problem walking away from everything to do this. (Mt 14: 13; 14:22-23;
Mk 6:31-33; Jn 6:15, 22; Mk 1:35; Lk 5:16) Because of our busy schedules and minds, sometimes we are “… like a jar of river water all shaken up. What you need is to sit still long enough that the sediment can settle and the water can become clear.”

We are starved for intimacy, to see and feel and know God in the very cells of our being. We are starved
for rest, to know God beyond what we can do for him. We are starved for quiet, to hear the sound of sheer
silence that is the presence of God himself. Silence and solitude creates space for this to happen.

How to incorporate solitude & silence:

•Take advantage of the “little solitudes” that fill our day (like a morning cup of coffee before beginning the work of the day; traffic/rush hour solitude; gathered silence before meals; a little walk around the neighborhood)
•Turn off the radio during long drives or turn off the TV. Get rid of the filler noise for a period of time.
•Find or develop a “quiet place” designed for silence and solitude – either inside the home or outside the home. Sometimes leaving the comfort of your home and the urgency of the office in order to seek times of silence and solitude are necessary to avoid distraction
•Taking a walk, going out to run, a place where no one else can get to, closing the door and turning off all the sound.
•Build a rhythm of silence and solitude not to think thru problems and resolving them or even for aggressive communication with God, but rather, just to say “I’m here to be quiet.”
•Keep a pad of paper with you so that whatever invades, you can write down and get it out of your mind. No phone. No music. Etc.

REQUIREMENTS FOR SOLITUDE
It requires quietness – where there is nothing competing.
It requires privacy – not a group.
It requires intentionality – there’s a purpose.
It requires consistency – it’s built into a pattern in your life.