Jesus Praying in GethsemaneLast week a number of you responded to my blog entry on silence. Silence and solitude are not the same thing, but they are companions. A piece on solitude showed up yesterday in Sound Bites, the daily reflection I receive via email. As I come into the hectic schedule of Holy Week and Easter this is a good reminder and it may be helpful for you as well.
THE BENEFIT OF SOLITUDE
Solitude. Jesus engaged in it frequently. At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus went to the wilderness for an extended period of fasting and prayer. He also went into solitude when He heard of the death of John the Baptist, when He was going to choose His disciples, after He had been involved in healing a leper, and after His followers had engaged in ministry. This pattern continued into the final days of His life, when again He withdrew into the solitude of the garden of Gethsemane to pray. He ended His ministry, as He began it, with the practice of solitude.
Jesus taught His followers to do the same. And as He said to them, "Come away to a deserted place," He says to us still. Wise followers of Christ's way have always understood the necessity and benefit of solitude. It is, to quote an old phrase, the "furnace of transformation."
-- John Ortberg in The Life You've Always Wanted
Solitude. Jesus engaged in it frequently. At the beginning of His ministry, Jesus went to the wilderness for an extended period of fasting and prayer. He also went into solitude when He heard of the death of John the Baptist, when He was going to choose His disciples, after He had been involved in healing a leper, and after His followers had engaged in ministry. This pattern continued into the final days of His life, when again He withdrew into the solitude of the garden of Gethsemane to pray. He ended His ministry, as He began it, with the practice of solitude.
Jesus taught His followers to do the same. And as He said to them, "Come away to a deserted place," He says to us still. Wise followers of Christ's way have always understood the necessity and benefit of solitude. It is, to quote an old phrase, the "furnace of transformation."
-- John Ortberg in The Life You've Always Wanted
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