Last week, I wrote about making solitude a daily practice and shared some thoughts about how to use that time fruitfully. This week I want to share some thoughts on how to get started.
It seems to me that we sometimes misunderstand the process of life change. When setting goals or beginning a new endeavor, we are often encouraged to think in terms of the biggest step we can envision. It feels inspiring to create a bold, expansive vision for one’s life or work, setting audacious goals that seem worthy of that vision and of the God we serve. Thinking and dreaming in those terms is exciting and feels motivating.
And yet there is nothing more demotivating than to set a goal and then fail to reach it. This is why New Year’s resolutions can be demoralizing. People dream of a mountain they’d like to climb, visualize the satisfaction they would feel on arriving there, and stumble into a ditch just as they start.
More importantly, even if you can achieve a bold goal, its scope is small compared to the ground you can cover by consistently taking small steps in the same direction over ten or twenty or thirty years.
Living well is mostly a modest endeavor. It’s not built on heroic spurts of effort but on consistent behavior. And disciplines, spiritual and otherwise, are not ends in themselves; rather they are the means to arrive at a healthy way of living that we can sustain. In other words, the purpose of discipline is to build good habits. And practicing wisely chosen habits can be a more reliable path to loving relationships and impactful work than grand vision and audacious goals.
I shared last week that I spend an average of 40 minutes each morning reading the Bible and praying. There is no formula to determine how much time to spend; this is simply what I’ve gravitated to over many years.
You may think, “I could never set aside forty minutes a day for a quiet time.” That may be true for you, and almost certainly is true if you’re just beginning the practice.
If you want to begin a daily practice of solitude, I suggest that you “start small.” Don’t start by setting aside forty minutes; start with just ten or fifteen. The key is to form a daily discipline, enabling this time to fit naturally into your daily patterns and rhythms. You’re much more likely to succeed in maintaining this practice if you set a consistent time and place.
If you can, anchor it to something that is already part of your routine. Unconsciously, as I moved toward having a morning quiet time many years ago, I connected that practice with my habit of morning coffee. The first thing I do each morning is make a pot of coffee. Once my coffee is ready, I sit down with a mug and my Bible in hand.
I never skip my quiet time. I have had people tell me that I must be very disciplined. In contrast, I’ve never had anyone tell me I must be very disciplined to drink coffee each morning. However, my consistency in both habits goes together.
I made this connection after reading a great little book – The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg.[i] It’s an outstanding survey of the current research on how habits are formed, sustained, and changed. There were many “Aha!” moments for me as I read, and I recommend it highly. The book has been helpful both in my personal life and in my leadership roles; the chapters on “keystone habits” for organizations are brilliant and have changed how I think about being a catalyst for organizational change.
So, try to set a time you can maintain consistently. This may take some trial and error. When I had young children, I was best able to find quiet by rising before they did. That may or may not work for you; if you’re not a morning person, don’t try to force yourself into a mold that doesn’t fit you.
Second, find a place where you can be undisturbed. No quiet places available? It may be possible to create one. John and Charles Wesley, the founders of Methodism, were two of 19 children. Their father was an Anglican minister, but both men acknowledged that their mother Susannah was their most powerful spiritual example and influence. When she sought solitude and prayer among 19 children, she would throw her apron over her head. Her children knew that when the apron was in position, Mom was not to be disturbed. My point is: you can do this.
Don’t worry about how you will spend the time as you begin. First, stop. Orient your awareness on God’s presence. If there is something you are hungry for, pursue it – knowledge, for example, from reading Scripture, or the chance to express your fears, doubts, concerns, questions. Remind yourself that it is rare to begin a relationship with an extended conversation. Long conversations come naturally when you know someone well, trust them, and share many interests. But a rich relationship must begin somewhere.
Let me caution you about the expectations you set for your experience of God’s presence when you practice solitude. Practicing God’s presence in solitude begins with believing that he is always present and then acting upon that belief. We are promised, “If you seek him, he will be found by you.” That doesn’t mean that he will always manifest his presence to you. God is not a genie who can be summoned by rubbing a lamp.
This is a deeper issue than we often realize. Hebrews 11:6 begins with these words: “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists.” Doesn’t that seem obvious? But it seems to me that, for many believers, God is a concept, not a person. Practicing God’s presence requires that we “believe that he exists” – that God is in fact a person, and that his existence is as real as that of the person beside me. In fact, God is beside me, now and always. In solitude, as we approach God believing that he exists, we simultaneously draw closer to him and distance ourselves from the world. When we do this, we can live more freely.
I acknowledge that different seasons of life make different demands on us. But when I look back, the most difficult, demanding seasons of my life were when I needed this practice most of all. I was able to renew my strength and rebalance my perspective by stepping away from the work and the pressure and into the presence of the God who could enable me to cope with all of it, and whose purposes in my life I trusted, even if I didn’t always understand them.
If you don’t make a consistent practice of seeking solitude, let me encourage you to begin. We have an open invitation: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him” (Rev. 3:20).
[i] Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit (Random House, Hew York: 2014)
Thanks so much for sharing what you do with a very important part of your day.I value my friend-ship with solitude. Hugs