Solitude with God and community with others are two essential anchors of the soul in the storms of life, which remind us to trust God for the work. Community is a gift from God, and the longing for solitude shares our experiences and struggles with God. A Christian, therefore, needs to grow into the practice of solitude and community to learn to hear God’s Word spoken to every individual personally and to be intentional in developing a heart-to-heart relationship with God. Practising regular “quiet” times enriches our time of spiritual friendship and soul-full sharing with the community and develops compassion to minister to others. The Scripture confirms the significance of solitude when the Lord God said, “Be still, and know that I am God” for the people whose hopes are in Him and who seek Him quietly for salvation (Bible, 2009). The Bible also portrays a Christian community reflecting a culture where God loves a cheerful giver: “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity” (Bible, 2009). This ensures that humans are designed in a way to crave a relationship with others to help other humans in their highs and lows.
In my personal capacity, solitude helps me in various aspects. It blesses me with times to meditate on Scripture, examine myself, and pray in silence for myself and others, and it blesses me with the time to share my experiences and struggles with God in my daily routine. Moreover, practising community with others helps me share and be aware of my personal struggles and longings to help people become part of the image of Christ in order to receive prayer from soul friends in the community. I infer it as a powerful transforming experience for me where I would learn how to work through my wandering thoughts to be silently “held” in the presence of God by a group of people in the community who are all praying and meditating on Scripture with me. The trick, as I deduced from how Christ moves between solitude and community after reading the Scripture thoroughly, is to identify between what is inside us and what is happening around us. Whenever I observe solitude and speak to God in silence, the feeling entails an urge to be found by God and also a deeper concern for other people in my surroundings. In a nutshell, our spiritual muscles, like our bodies, need a strong core to discipline our daily lives as a deliberate choice to pursue spiritual growth. This core can only be achieved through a meaningful relationship with God and the decision to always keep at it in order to build up core strength through God’s favour or love. This urge incorporates spiritual discipline in our daily routine to help us remember what God wants for us and what our heart really wants, and that is what changes our lives.
References
Bible, E. S. V. (2009). The English standard version Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments with Apocrypha. Oxford University Press.
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