A little while ago I published an article here about St Cuthbert, and how he drew his strength to be the amazing man of God that he was from his extended times alone with him in the North Sea. More recently I have been reading a book which mentions solitude as one of the key elements of the Christian life if we want to grow. Perhaps surprisingly, that was by a Pentecostal author rather than someone of a more Catholic persuasion. Anyway, Irene and I felt that it was right to get away somewhere peaceful and find God in the stillness. The first attempt is shown above. The salt marshes where the fens meet the wash are still pretty similar to what they must have been like in Cuthbert's day, even though the fenland field systems just the other side of the sea wall are shaped by 21st century agriculture. It was absolutely great for a while being surrounded by nothing but bird song, until we started to be buzzed repeatedly by RAF fighter jets practising bombing runs!
A few days later we had another attempt, but this time found a quiet country lane in the Linconshire Wolds with a view one way across the undulating fields, and in the other direction a glimpse of the North Sea coast near Saltfleet. This time we were disturbed only by two cars passing during the whole time that we were there. Much better!
Both of these occasions took me away from the busyness of life at home and all the pressures of outstanding tasks. Keeping on tackling the things that have to be done was not Cuthbert's approach, nor was it Jesus' way of going about things (Luke's Gospel, chapter 5, verses 15 & 16). They both took out large swathes of time to be alone with God as a priority; everything else flowed out of that. Neither did Paul dive straight into his major ministry after his dramatic conversion, but rather spent a long time in Arabia, the implication being on his own with God, maybe in the desert (Paul's letter to the Galatians, chapter 1, verse 17).
Anyway, we had had some pressing decisions to make and, despite their being pressing, it had taken us a long time to end up not sure about any of them. We had prayed alone and together, asked friends to pray for us, fasted on occasion, tried to see what God might be saying as we read the Bible, asked him for dreams, asked him why he wasn't answering, asked him if we weren't listening properly, been quiet before God to see what he might want to speak in the quietness (then he generally talked about something other than what was our priority question) and so on. We had done, I think, pretty much everything thing that you might have expected of someone with a key life decision to make that needed God's input. However, physically and intentionally going away from everything and everyone, to be alone and quiet with God, somehow seemed to break something in the Spirit and suddenly a lot of things seem to have fallen into place.
With spiritual matters you can't always sort out cause and effect in the same way as with physical ones. However, there still are cause and effect and they are still related, just in a more mysterious way. All I can say is that I've seriously learned that solitude is powerful member of the spiritual toolkit that God gives us. Perhaps we needed that in order to break open the situation, or perhaps God wanted to teach me this lesson before answering the key question on our minds; as I say, cause and effect are difficult to sort out. What I can do, though, is recommend trying being propely alone with God for extended periods as part of growing as a Christian. It wasn't just about getting the answer to the question, but also digging deeper into the character of my Heavenly Father.
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