Spiritual Disciplines for the Soul: Silence and Solitude
William Gaultiere, Ph. D., © 2005
Jesus began his public ministry with 40 days of withdrawal into the desert wilderness to fast and pray in silence and solitude. He was alone, hungry, hot and thirsty, surrounded by wild animals, and tested by Satan. We read this and we feel sorry for Jesus, thinking he was so depleted as to barely survive. But the truth is that his Father, the Scriptures, and ministering angels strengthened him! His time alone with God and quietly focused only on him empowered him to resist Satan’s temptations (which came at the end of the 40 days) and it focused and prepared him for his public ministry. Interspersed throughout Jesus’ ministry of preaching, healing, and discipling we see him withdraw from the crowds again and again – often getting up very early to do so – in order to be quiet and alone with the Father (e.g., Mark 1:35, 3:13, 6:31, 46). This is how he got renewed in his Father’s love and empowered by the Spirit for his life and ministry.
Jesus taught his disciples to follow the same practice. “Because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to [the twelve apostles], ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.’ So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place” (Mark 6:31-32, NIV). Paul certainly knew very well the importance of silence and solitude. For instance, after his encounter with the risen Christ he spent three days in solitude and silence for prayer and fasting (Acts 9:9). Then after being ministered to by Ananias and visiting with the disciples he withdrew to converse with Christ for three years in the isolation of the Arabian desert to converse with Christ (Galatians 1:15-16).
John the Baptist is another one in the Bible who practiced solitude with God. He was quite a figure. Imagine a man who lives in the wilderness with wild animals, dresses in hairy camel skin tied on by a thick leather belt, and exists on a diet of locusts and wild honey! That’s John the Baptist. His message was as austere as his desert surroundings: “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2, NASB). He lived in the desert with his disciples and hundreds of people came to him there to be baptized and taught. Jesus said John the Baptist was the greatest of all the prophets (all of whom were big on solitude), but John sought no glory for himself. Instead his life ambition and great joy was to prepare the way for people to go to Jesus, as a friend supports a bride marrying the groom (John 3:29). He lived by the dictum: “[Jesus] must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less” (John 3:30, NLT).
Like John the Baptist, the Desert Fathers of the early church made solitude in the desert their way of life. They lived in the Egyptian desert in private huts where they weaved baskets to earn a living and while they weaved they prayed and meditated on Scripture. They fasted often and practiced other ascetic disciplines (some of the monks did so in extreme and odd ways that have been given undo attention). Regularly they met individually with their Abba for spiritual direction and as a community for worship.
The most famous of these Desert Fathers is St. Antony (295-373). He was born into a well-to-do family. As a young man he spent a long time meditating on the book of Acts and was moved by the stories of how the disciples lived for Jesus. Then one Sunday he heard the gospel reading: “Go sell all you have and give to the poor and you shall have treasure in heaven” (Mark 10:21). The words so penetrated St. Antony’s heart that he obeyed the Scripture literally. After providing for his sister he sold his parents’ estate, gave the money to the poor, and headed out into the Egyptian desert to seek God through practicing spiritual disciplines.
The Life of St. Antony by Athanasus is considered one of the most influential writings in Christian history because it depicted an ordinary man living an extraordinary life that looked like Jesus’. His devotion to Christ and disciplined life produced remarkable holy fruit in character, word, and deed. Because of St. Antony’s example countless people became followers of Christ. Thousands of them went into the desert to visit him and receive spiritual direction and ministry. Story after story was recorded of miracle healings and deliverances and extraordinary words of wisdom on living the Christian life. Many Christians were so inspired by St. Antony that they became monks, imitating his way of life in the desert and forming monasteries, a movement which continues to this day.
Fortunately, we don’t need to become monks living in private huts in the desert to practice the discipline of solitude! We can apply the way of the Desert Fathers in the context of the lives we’re living. The obvious way to do this is in daily devotions in the Scriptures. Less obvious is to find quiet interludes during the day to focus our minds on God, even if only for praying a Breath Prayer for a few minutes. Most people spend time alone driving in the car to work or running errands and this is a great opportunity for silence and solitude if you just turn off the radio and CD player to converse with God. And it’s immensely valuable to periodically set aside a day or longer for a retreat with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at a monastery or other quiet place that you can be left alone for long periods of time.
As important as solitude is you shouldn’t enter into it casually or carelessly – especially if you have an extroverted personality! There are reasons why many people are afraid to be alone, especially without activity or noise. There are dangerous battles for us to fight in solitude! “We can only survive solitude,” warns Dallas Willard, “if we cling to Christ there” (p. 161). Henri Nouwen describes how our initial experience in complete quiet and aloneness with God is likely to feel:
"Solitude is not a private therapeutic place. Rather, it is the place of conversion, the place where the old self dies and the new self is born…
"In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding: no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract, just me – naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken – nothing. It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something. But that is not all. As soon as I decide to stay in my solitude, confusing ideas, disturbing images, wild fantasies, and weird associations jump about in my mind like monkeys in a banana tree. Anger and greed begin to show their ugly faces. I give long, hostile speeches to my enemies and dream lustful dreams in which I am wealthy, influential, and very attractive – or poor, ugly, and in need of immediate consolation. Thus I try again to run from the dark abyss of my nothingness and restore my false self in all its vainglory…
"The wisdom of the desert is that the confrontation with our own frightening nothingness forces us to surrender ourselves totally and unconditionally to the Lord Jesus Christ" (The Way of the Heart, p. 27-28).
Once you push through the initial discomfort and challenge of solitude you’ll find that it will bring the wonderful refreshment of God’s peace, “that transcends all understanding” and “will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7, NIV). Even when we’re in stressful circumstances we can learn to maintain a silent center, a stillness of soul that flows in God’s peace. We come into this peace by training with Jesus in silence and solitude. As we go into the solitary place with the Lord he purges our souls of the distractions, anxieties, and sins that rise to the surface. Then his Holy Spirit like a dove settles on us and leaves us with the gift of peace, a deep and soul-full sense of well-being.
“The purpose of silence and solitude,” says Richard Foster, “is to be able to see and hear” (Celebration of Discipline, p. 86). The Spirit speaks to us when our heart is still and silent before the Lord – not when we’re rushing about and doing our own thing in our own way. As Jesus said that it’s the purified heart that receives the blessing of seeing God (Matthew 5:8). And when God shows us himself or speaks his Word to us we want to pay attention! So it’s a good idea when you set aside time for a sacred silence to bring your journal and write down what you see and hear.
Solitude with God is about more than purifying peace and hearing God’s voice, it’s about being empowered to maintain our focus on God continually, to live conscious of and interactive with God’s presence moment-by-moment as we go about the activities of our day:
"The “desert” or “closet” is the primary place of strength for the beginner, as it was for Christ and Paul… In stark aloneness it is possible to have silence, to be still, and to know that Jehovah indeed is God (Psalm 46:10), to set the Lord before our minds with sufficient intensity and duration that we stay centered upon him – our hearts fixed, established in trust (Psalm 112:7-8) – even when back in the office, shop, or home" (The Spirit of the Disciplines, p. 162).
Dietrich Bonhoeffer believed that solitude was so valuable in helping him to listen to God’s Word and center his mind on God that he practiced it at the start and end of every day:
"We are silent at the beginning of the day because God should have the first word, and we are silent before going to sleep because the last word also belongs to God… Silence is nothing else but waiting for God’s Word and coming from God’s Word with a blessing. But everybody knows that this is something that needs to be practiced and learned" (Life Together, p. 79).
The ultimate test of the value of silence and solitude is if they empower us to love others – if we’ve truly been with the God of love and his love has purified us and put us at peace then we’ll love others. So we need to realize that silence isn’t something only for when we’re alone; it’s also about learning to control our tongue in our relationships. As Jesus’ little brother James brings out in his epistle the tongue directs our lives like a rudder steers a boat and it is not an easy exercise to learn mastery over our tongues (James 3:4-5). How easily we criticize or slander others. How quickly we use our words to give others an ideal impression of ourselves. The discipline of silence teaches us loving restraint. We learn to see not only ourselves, but also others as under God’s grace. “The fruit of solitude,” explains Richard Foster, “is increased sensitivity and compassion for others. There comes a new freedom to be with people. There is new attentiveness to their needs, new responsiveness to their hurts” (Celebration of Discipline, p. 95)
Each day we have many practical opportunities for us to practice silence out of love for others! For instance, we can rely on Christ and his grace to:
- Turn the other cheek when insulted
- Bless those that curse us
- Let someone cut in front of us in the checkout line or on the freeway and simply offer a smile or a quiet prayer
from a glad heart
- Let others speak before us in a conversation or a meeting
- Do menial tasks without saying a word to draw attention to our service
- In a disagreement let our justification and image rest entirely on what Christ has done for us rather than what
we say or do
- Keep quiet about an achievement because God’s attention is enough for you
Don’t misunderstand the exercise of silence. “There is a time to be silent and a time to speak” (Ecclesiastes 3:7, NIV). As much as it’s good to be able to hold your tongue it’s also important to be able to speak the truth in love to people (Ephesians 4:15). Practicing silence doesn’t mean having no boundaries! And it certainly doesn’t mean receiving abuse or any sinful violation in a way that would leave you endangered, depressed, afraid, or ashamed! Richard Foster says, “A person who is under the Discipline of silence is a person who can say what needs to be said when it needs to be said… If we are silent when we should speak, we are not living in the Discipline of silence. If we speak when we should be silent, we again miss the mark” (Celebration of Discipline, p. 87).
Jesus modeled that wise appropriation: He knew when to be silent before his accusers and when to speak up, when to let people go their way and when to confront them, when to endure persecution quietly and when to stand and fight in love. In solitude and silence we go into training with Jesus so that we can bring him and his wisdom and grace into our relationships with others.
