What does the Bible say about solitude?

Solitude precedes spiritually significant events. In scripture, solitude frequently precedes a spiritually significant event. Jacob is alone before the wrestling match, his "magnificent defeat" that changed his life forever. (Frederick Buechner, "The Magnificent Defeat" in {{The Magnificent Defeat}}, HarperCollins, 1966, pp.10-18) Moses is alone before encountering the burning bush and the God who changed his life forever. Elijah retreated to a cave in which silence envelops him and God's still, small voice speaks to him. Jesus is frequently alone to pray, including on the night before calling his disciples. He is alone with Peter, James, and John when he is blindingly transfigured before their eyes. Jesus is alone in Gethsemane when he agonizes over his Father's calling to be crucified, to drink a cup he does not want to drink. He then drinks it to the dregs.

It is this example setby Jesus, and his counsel in Matthew 6 to pray alone ("in secret"), that has motivated his followers to imitate him by seeking the discipline of solitude. If even Jesus periodically needed solitude to in order to reboot, who are we to think we can ignore this classic discipline.

Solitude precedes spiritually significant events

• Genesis 32:24, "Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak"
• Exodus 3:1-2, Moses, while in the wilderness, speaks to the Lord in a flame of fire from a bush
• 1 Kings 19:9, 12, Elijah experienced silence while in a cave

Commands of solitude

• Lamentations 3:27-28, "It is good for one to bear the yoke in youth, to sit alone in silence when the Lord has imposed it"
• Matthew 6:6, when you pray, pray in solitude

Jesus practices solitude

• Matthew 17:1-2, Jesus' transfiguration with only Peter, James, and his brother John on the mountain as witnesses
• Matthew 26:36-39, Jesus prays in the garden of Gethsemane
• Mark 1:35, "In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed"
• Mark 6:31, "He said to them, `Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.' For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat"
• Luke 5:15-16, Jesus withdraws from the crowds to pray
• Luke 6:12-13, Jesus spent the night by himself in prayer
• John 6:15, "When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself"

Sermon ideas about solitude

Encouragements to practice solitude and descriptions of its benefits may be found in the writings of the church's masters of spiritual disciplines, including St. Ignatius of Loyola, Thomas à Kempis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Thomas Merton, and Henri Nouwen. Contemporary Protestant writers on solitude include Richard Foster and Dallas Willard. (Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, Harper&Row, 1988; Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives, HarperSanFrancisco, 1988) Foster and Willard include choice quotes from some of the other classic writers.

Solitude as abstinence

Dallas Willardobserves that solitude is a "discipline of abstinence," which is a form of self-denial, which is a form of "dying with Christ." What we abstain from is companionship — though companionship is not only not wrong, but often a blessing. So why periodically abstain from it? Because our companionship is not always a blessing. It so often meshes with worldly patterns of feeling, thought, and action that we then easily absorb into ourselves. In fellowship, we may stir each other up to scorn, envy, gossip, gloating, idle chatter, and much else. Or our companions become God-substitutes, distracting us from the "still, small voice" we should be listening for. In solitude "we find the psychic distance, the perspective from which we can see, in the light of eternity, the created things that trap, worry, and oppress us." We attempt to crucify these things, painfully dying to them. All this is, even from a Protestant point of view, the valid impulse in monasticism. (Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives, Harper SanFrancisco, 1988, pp. 160-162)

Richard Foster observes the paradox of solitude: The Christian who seeks solitude wants aloneness from other human beings, but is aware that in solitude she is not alone. God is there, filling her with unmediated presence and love. "Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment." And one needn't travel to a retreat center to find it. Any site where one can be out of contact with others and silent is a place of solitude. A walk in the woods or along a deserted shore will serve. So will a cup of coffee before anyone else is up. Or a time alone in the back yard before bed, drinking in the darkness and the stars. Solitude is a time for prayer that centers on Jesus Christ, the one who so often sought solitude; it's a time to gather his passion, gentleness, and love. With these gifts the Christian emerges from solitude. He had entered solitude in hope of recovering his spiritual health. Now, having gathered the gifts of Christ, he hopes to offer them to companions from whom he had withdrawn, wanting to bless them now with gifts from Christ he could have recovered only in solitude. (Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, Harper&Row, 1988, pp. 96, 105-108)