Jesus withdrew to places where people were not, in order to be alone with God. I don’t know how often you have tried? It’s extremely difficult to do without distraction. In my experience, even when I find a quiet environment, a quiet place, often it’s still too noisy to be truly connected to God, to commune, without distraction. If I try to sit, stand or walk quietly and peacefully, I find myself continually interrupted by distraction.

Interestingly, I’ve found that most often the greatest distraction is myself. The noise that would continually break the tranquility and peace comes from within me, not from outside around me. Thoughts and feelings that distract my peace and focus; not wrong thoughts or feelings, just an internal busyness that is difficult to settle and quieten down. It seems the occasions when Jesus withdrew to “a desolate place by himself” were not unusual.

Solitude – aloneness with the Lord – is something that sounds very straight forward, and yet my experience tells me that making time for being in solitude with God is so often neglected and displaced by our well-meaning doing for God. In this busy life, it’s easy to allow busyness and noise to displace solitude and quiet – to allow our doing for God to displace our being with God.

I have learned that solitude takes practice and discipline. I’ve tried in the past and failed – continually. But I’ll keep trying again, and again – that’s what practice and discipline is.

Solitude is a good friend of Prayer; they enjoy one another’s company. If you’re struggling in becoming acquainted with Prayer, perhaps first go and try to strike up a familiar friendship with Solitude. With Solitude and Prayer as friends, you’ll soon find that you’ll know Intimacy. And where Solitude, Prayer and Intimacy are together, you’ll often find Rest too.

Be still and know.