Silent Solitude

Whenever I try to be quiet and focus on prayer and listen for God to speak, Satan is right there to interrupt and disrupt. I've had that happen to me. As soon as your mind is on God, Satan wants to redirect you to focus on something else, anything else, just so long as you're not focusing on God. Satan wants us to give up and stop seeking solitude and silence.

He wants to keep us away from all the good things silent solitude gives us. He doesn't want us to be alone with God; he doesn't want us to hear God. He doesn't want us to be refreshed and replenished. He wants to keep us busy doing other things and he wants us to continue to be uncomfortable with silent solitude.

So what's going to help us to get into the rhythm so we can benefit from silent solitude? First, try to set a regular time that you believe will work best for you. And if that time happens to be early in the morning, like it was for Jesus, then so be it. But choose whatever time where you are least likely to be interrupted.

And whenever that is, make sure you don't do anything before hand to sabotage it. Don't ingest things like caffeine soon before. You'll be too jittery and unable to focus.

Make sure you're not tired. How many times have you sat down to read your bible or pray and you end up nodding off? That could be because you're too tired to begin with. The noise around you and the things you were doing kept you going but now that you've slowed down your tiredness catches up to you. We need to find the happy medium between not being too tired and not being too hyped up.

Perhaps in your quiet time God speaks to you through his Spirit or his word. You may want to write those things down. That's great, but use pen and paper-avoid bringing your computer, tablet or phone with you into your quiet room. You need a break from the electronics. Plus, you don't need the distractions of notification pings or the temptation to check emails, texts or social media. We're used to using the bible app on our phones but when it's your quiet time, bring an old-fashioned bible in with you.

Earlier I talked about those who avoid silent solitude because they either had too much of it in the past or they have too much of it now. So to say it's a good thing is something they would disagree with. So how does this get turned around for them to see it in a positive light again?

See the difference. Before, if you were sent to your room or put in solitary confinement-silence and solitude were punishment. If you live alone, silence and solitude cause loneliness and depression. But now, silence and solitude have a different meaning and purpose.

Now, it has nothing to do with punishment; it has to do with blessing. Now, instead of it being filled with loneliness and despair, your time is spent with Jesus. Before it was something you would be afraid of and dread, but now it is something you can actually look forward to.

4) How does silence and solitude benefit us?