Becoming Solitary: Alone with God

Karen DeVries

At the end of a Sunday service, I noticed a woman sitting alone. As others filed out smiling and greeting one another, she sat with her head down, looking sad and tired. Then I overheard a woman nearby ask her husband to wait. He gave a knowing nod, and off she went to sit beside the lonely woman.

A few months later, I sat in a crowded row in the same general area of the sanctuary. I stood with everyone to sing. Then I sat with my Bible open like everyone else. But I remembered that isolated woman, and that day, despite being squished in the pew, I felt her loneliness.

Thinking I was just tired, I urged myself to change my attitude. There seemed to be no logical reason for my feelings of being alone.

Alone can be a scary place. I’ve heard warnings about the dangers of turning inward, especially at difficult times. Yet that morning I left church with the distinct notion that God intended for me to be alone—not away from others so much as alone with Him more.

I consciously choose not to fear being alone. It would be okay to study the Bible outside of a Bible Study; to call on God instead of picking up the phone to talk with a friend; to sit on the porch instead of in front of the TV; to walk in the woods instead of in the neighborhood. Solitude would even be okay in a church filled with people.

At first, the quiet took some getting used to. I like good conversation and the background noise of TV. But after a while, I could hear the gentle voice of my perfect Father speaking to me. Not like in the Moses movies. Not like a telephone chat with a friend. But more like a whisper from the leaves in the trees persuading me to draw my eyes up to the hills (Psalm 121), to the heavens, to see above and beyond frustrating situations. I knew that God was calling me to be alone with Him and to make myself known to Him. I wasn’t to isolate myself from others, but I was to seek His voice above all others.

At the time, I didn’t understand why God would not give me peace about being involved outside my home as a Bible Study leader or a school volunteer. But looking back, I see that I needed that “alone” time to make necessary adjustments and important decisions regarding our family. The peace God gave me came from being quiet and living more simply.

In reciting Israel's history, Moses said this about the patriarch Jacob: “The Lord alone led him; no foreign god was with him” (Deuteronomy 32:12).

“Foreign gods“ in the form of busyness or seeking human advice could have distracted me from God's direction. I am grateful that He taught me to be alone with Him so that He alone could lead me.

Do you need to accept a time of solitude so that God can show you the direction He wants you to go?