For the past few weeks, we have been talking about the spiritual disciplines. We’re thinking about these practices God uses to grow our souls. These practices overlap and they build on one another. We began our series by talking about prayer because prayer really undergirds most of these practices. From there, we moved on to fasting because fasting is connected to several of these as well. Today, I’d like for us to spend some time thinking about the disciplines of solitude and silence.

• Solitude is fasting from interactions with others.
• Silence is fasting from speech.

In our hyper-connected world, solitude and silence are as vital as they have ever been.

As in all things, we look to Jesus as our model. And when we look to Jesus, we find Him practicing the discipline of solitude.

Luke 4:42-44

At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”

As you can see by looking at the preceding verses, Luke is describing a moment when the ministry of Jesus is really flourishing. He is teaching in the synagogues of Galilee. He is healing people of their diseases and He is casting out demons, pushing back the borders of the enemy’s kingdom. But in the middle of all of that activity, Jesus does something strange. He seeks solitude with the Father.

• Jesus goes to a solitary place. That word most often refers to the wilderness or the desert.
• Jesus goes out into this quiet place, away from the hustle and bustle of the crowds. To do what? Well, we know that He spent considerable time in prayer in the wilderness. Mark adds this detail in his account of this same story.
• But in a broader sense, Jesus went into the wilderness seeking solitude with His Father. Jesus was fasting from the presence of others as a way of prioritizing time with God. He removes Himself from those external pressures of teaching and healing and He retreats into solitude to tend to His interior life. He was simply spending time with His Heavenly Father.

This time of solitude was clearly a time of reflection — to circle back to a previous discipline, it was a time of meditation. This solo time with the Father kept Jesus grounded. It kept Him focused on His mission. When the people try to keep Jesus from leaving — they just want to keep Jesus all to themselves — He refuses them by saying, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.

Times of solitude will keep us grounded, too. In the midst of all the daily pressures we face, solitude and silence help us keep our sanity. They keep us focused on the mission God has given us.

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Years ago, Klaus Issler wrote a great little book about all of this entitled, Wasting Time with God. And that’s such a great title because it really expresses Issler’s thesis. He encourages us to seek times of solitude and silence with the Lord apart from any agenda. He talks about this idea of spending time with God in a way that reflects friendship with God.

Does that concept sound foreign to you? Is God your friend?

Years ago, when I was in college, I was a summer youth intern at my home church. That’s where I met Corey Trevathan, who would go on to be one of our youth ministers here at Mayfair. Corey and I were teaching the youth group class together one night and Corey talked about the idea of friendship with God, how Abraham was friends with God and that this was an example for us — God wants to be your friend, too. One parent approached us afterward and he was really upset that we were talking about this. He said, “God is holy and righteous. He’s the Creator, the Judge — but He is NOT my friend!” He felt that this image of God somehow detracted from God’s holiness and His “otherness.” Friendship with God sounded too ordinary.

And some of us might feel something similar this morning. Maybe there’s a little pushback you’re feeling in your heart and your soul as I’m talking about friendship with God.

But the idea of friendship with God is biblical. In fact, you find this idea in both the Old and the New Testaments.

• Jehoshaphat prays these words in 2 Chronicles 20:7, “Did you not, our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before your people Israel, and give it forever to the descendants of Abraham your friend?”

• Isaiah 41:8, But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend.

• James 2:21-23, Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” — and he was called a friend of God.

The Bible repeatedly puts forth Abraham as a model for our faith — and Abraham was called a friend of God. That means friendship with God is possible for us as well.

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One key component of friendship is spending time together. And that’s the significance of solitude and silence. These are ways of prioritizing our time with God, our friend.

For many of us, I think our concepts of efficiency and productivity get in the way of spending time with God. Even the title of Issler’s book is difficult for some people: wasting time with God? Number one, how is time spent with God “wasting time?” Moreover, many of us loathe the idea of wasting time. I was taught from an early age NOT to waste time, but to be really intentional about how I use my time. Now we turn around and talk about wasting time? For many of us, that just sounds wrong.

Maybe it’s helpful to instead think about spending time with God apart from any agenda. Spending unhurried time with God. We’re not talking about spending time with God in prayer — at least not the kinds of prayers where we rattle off all the names of all the people we want God to heal. We’re not talking about spending time with God studying some passage of Scripture. We’re talking about spending time with God in leisurely friendship. It’s not time when you’re trying to make anything happen; you’re just enjoying time together. That’s what Issler is getting at with this phrase “wasting time with God.”

When I was a child, we would go over to visit my grandparents on most Sunday afternoons. My mother was one of six children and Sunday lunch was a time when many of my mother’s siblings would bring their families over to visit with my grandparents. Other than eating a meal together, there was no agenda. If you said, “What are we here to do?” you’d get a lot of strange looks. We were there to be together. No agenda apart from that.

• If I wanted some more food, it was there in the kitchen.
• If I wanted to watch the ball game, the TV was over in the corner — although it only picked up three or four channels.
• If I wanted to play Rook, I could try and get in on the game my parents and grandparents were playing — good luck with that.
• And if I got bored, I would go out and wander around my granddad’s farm. I’d climb up in the loft of the barn or take a walk in the woods.
• When I’d come back in the house, my grandmother would have cookies or cinnamon rolls and she’d pour me a big glass of milk and we would sit at her table and she would ask me what I was learning in school.
• Those were some of my favorite childhood memories because there was no agenda. We were all just wasting time together on Sunday afternoons.

When do you “waste time” with God?

Issler suggests a variety of different ways we can do this:

• He suggests that you start with a few little 1-2 minute “retreats” in the middle of your day. You can do this anywhere — when you’re getting ready in the morning, when you’re driving home from work or school, at the end of the day before you go to bed. But you just give yourself a couple of minutes to stop, to breathe, and to give God your undivided attention. Most of the time when we do this, we’ll be surprised at the breathless pace at which we’ve been running. When we pause for just a minute, we find an invitation from God to slow down and enjoy His favor — not for what we’re accomplishing, but simply for who we are.
• From there, Issler suggests finding a half hour on the weekend to go on a walk — but instead of putting your earbuds in and listening to another podcast, spend that time communing with God.
• Or you may want to consider a spiritual retreat once a year wherein we can intentionally devote an even greater portion of time to our relationship with God.

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In times of solitude, silence is vitally important.

Habakkuk 2:20

But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.

Silence is a Sabbath rest from speaking. It’s verbal fasting. We have an addiction to words and silence breaks us of this.

• Habakkuk points out that when you worship an idol, you do all the talking — because the idol is going to say nothing. Any energy, any idea must be human created because the idol does nothing.
• But if you worship the Living God, your first action is to shut up. Because the Living God might actually have something to say.
• The passage says God is at home. He is in His holy temple, right where you would expect Him to be. So let all the earth keep silence before Him.

Silence is one of the ways we demonstrate our faith in God. It’s predicated on the belief that God has something to say, something to reveal that we might need to hear.

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Solitude is the one time in your day when nobody will be expecting anything from you. No employees or employers with their questions and their demands. No children to feed or bathe or parent. No bills to be paid, etc. God does not make these demands on you. He simply delights in you, delights in your presence.

Do you believe that? God DELIGHTS in you. He craves time with you.

Zephaniah 3:17

The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.

Solitude is important because it grows our intimacy with the God who takes delight in us.

Henri Nouwen tells a story of these three disciples who go out into the desert to meet with a monk named Anthony. We usually refer to them as “the desert fathers.” In the early centuries of Christianity, there were many devout men and women who decided to forsake their normal lives to go and live out in the solitude of the wilderness. We call them the desert fathers and the desert mothers. Anyway, these three disciples come out to see Anthony. The first two ask Anthony question after question but the third says nothing. Finally Anthony asks him why he doesn’t speak. The disciple says, “It is enough just to see you, Father.”

This week, I hope you’ll be able to experience God in silence and solitude, the God who takes great delight in you, the God who says, “It is enough just to see you.”