The Value of Solitude

“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

We live in the 21st century. We’ve got more options on how to spend our time than ever before. Be it working, reading, driving, golfing, talking on the phone, doing your taxes, eating, watching a screen, or baking a cake, there are more things to do than there are hours in your life you could spend thinking about things to do. Doing things isn’t bad, but too much of anything is a bad thing. Sometimes, we need to do nothing. Here’s your challenge: go somewhere quiet: Go to an empty room. Sit in an empty bathtub. Sit in your vehicle with the radio off. Then, set a timer for fifteen minutes. And then do nothing. If you haven’t tried this in a while, it’s harder than you might think! Researchers recently found that people would rather endure a literal jolt of electricity than be made to sit and think. The urge to do something rather than nothing is not new. It’s human. That quote at the beginning of this article was taken from /Pensées/, a book by French Mathematician Blaise Pascal. He died in 1662. The difference between then and now is not the desire we feel but the opportunities we have to act on that desire. You have to go out of your way to be alone now. That wasn’t the case 350 years ago. But why bother? What’s the benefit of being alone?

Why practice solitude?

We should look at Solitude and silence as a spiritual discipline just like fasting and prayer. No one was spiritually healthier than Jesus, and he regularly separated himself from others for spiritual purposes (Matthew 4:1-11;14:23; Mark 1:35; Luke 6:12-13; etc.). There’s a certain clarity that comes from being alone. Absent from distraction, we can allow our minds to focus solely on one task. And in that realization lies the secret of solitude:

Solitude doesn’t actually mean doing nothing

I contend that it is impossible to actually do nothing. If you are conscious, your mind is on to something, maybe several things. The value of solitude and silence is that it frees your ever-hungry mind from what it’s addicted to. It takes away the ice cream of daily distractions. With time, it will get hungrier. And if you get hungry enough, things that didn’t seem appetizing being begin to make your mouth water. When Jesus would practice solitude, he would often combine that with other disciplines or objectives. Prayer and fasting are seen in the above references. Before Jesus chose the twelve, he spent all night in prayer on a mountain. Use solitude as a tool to increase the effectiveness of your other spiritual disciplines. It’s okay to pray on your way to work. Every now and again, wake up an hour before everyone else (or stay up an hour later than everyone else) and be alone with God. Spend more time listening. Write down your thoughts in a journal. Free yourself from the constant barrage of distractions and be alone. Try praying in solitude, reading your Bible in solitude, journaling in solitude, fasting in solitude, worshiping in solitude, and just listening in solitude. If you’d like more information on this discipline (or others for that matter), I recommended Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life by Donald Whitney.