How Long Does It Take for You to Be Alone with God?

Sunday Sermonettes #110

How long does it take for you to be alone with God? Quite a long time, I suppose.

We run ahead with our feverish activities. But God waits. He waits with unending patience.

There is a picture in the Bible that tells us something of this. In Ezekiel’s vision, when the heavenly beings stood still and lowered their wings, a voice spoke from above the expanse over their heads (Ezekiel 1:24–28).

Wings are for flying. For activity. For moving to and fro. Yet, in this vision, when they stood still, a voice spoke.

Jesus took his disciples with him as he went about teaching and ministering to people. The crowds pressed around him, seeking healing and deliverance from unclean spirits. There were so many people coming and going that Jesus and his disciples did not even have time to eat.

So Jesus invited his disciples to come away with him to a quiet place and get some rest (Mark 6:30–32).

Activity, even in the service of God, is good. But to hear God, sometimes you need to come away from the flutter and noise and be alone with him.

Martha, for instance, opened her home to Jesus. And she was busy preparing food for him. But Mary, her sister, sat at Jesus’ feet, listening to his words.

Martha complained to Jesus that Mary was not helping her. But Jesus said that Mary’s choice to sit and listen to his words was the better one (Luke 10:38–42).

See, good things in life, even your good activities, might be coming between you and God.

I said good things. That is hard to swallow, isn’t it?

Good things that take much of our time, attention, and resources. Good things that occupy so much of our thoughts that we become emotionally wedded to them.

And sometimes, we keep running until we run out of energy. We become disappointed with all our activity. Only then do we begin to see how much we have missed in our busyness.

It is then that we discover the need to be alone with God. Then we begin to look at him with fresh eyes.

Oh, is this God, the One I worship?

For only when you reach that place do you begin to realize that you did not yet know your God as you thought you did.

The God who loved you and gave himself for you (Galatians 2:20). You missed so much of knowing him because you were running ahead with your good activities.

You did not have time to be alone with him.

It was not that he was absent. Never, not even for a moment.

The truth is, you were running ahead. But all the time, he was waiting for you to draw near and be alone with him.

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Featured image courtesy: Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay