On a recent trip to Williamsburg, my family and I enjoyed spending an afternoon strolling through the revolutionary city, observing many skills that, in hindsight, I recognized have become obsolete as a result of technology. Those who practice the art of shoemaker, silversmith, blacksmith, brickmaker and wheelwright are all under siege from technology\u2019s automation.\u00a0 In the same way, those who seek to emulate Christ and practice the increasingly lost spiritual discipline of solitude are besieged by technology, which can easily intrude into any moment of quiet contemplation. Jesus himself fell victim to interruption, apart from technology, when seeking solitude with His Father in the passage below,<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u201cVery early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: \u2018Everyone is looking for you!\u2019 Jesus replied, \u2018Let us go somewhere else\u2014to the nearby villages\u2014so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.\u2019 So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.\u201d (Mark 1:35-39)<\/em><\/p>\n It\u2019s important to understand that when it says, \u201cVery early in the morning, while it was still dark,\u201d<\/em> it was possibly as early as 3-4am when Jesus left Simon\u2019s house in the city, and went out of town to a garden or remote building.\u00a0 I envision Jesus seeking solace in the darkness in an isolated place, much like the picture above of a remote village in the Dominican Republic we recently visited.<\/p>\n Paul Miller notes in his book A Praying Life: Connecting with God in a Distracting World<\/i>,<\/p>\n \u201cJesus loved people and had the power to help so he had one interruption after another. If Jesus lived today, his cell phone would be ringing constantly\u2026By spending time with our Father in prayer we integrate our lives with his, with what he is doing in us. Our lives become more coherent. They feel calmer, more ordered, even in the midst of confusion and pressure.\u201d\u00a0 <\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0A few points to consider from Jesus\u2019 example above:<\/p>\n 1.\u00a0 Solitude is costly.<\/p>\n Jesus prayed when it cost him something; he rose and went out a long while before daylight.\u00a0 In the same manner, if we desire solitude, it may cost us sleep in order to spend time with our Heavenly Father, either rising early or remaining up late into the quite hours of the night.<\/p>\n 2.\u00a0 Solitude provides focus.<\/p>\n Jesus knew he needed time with His Heavenly Father in order to prepare him for the day ahead.\u00a0 The distraction found him out, but not before he had been prepared for ministry, and aligned his priorities with His Father\u2019s priorities.\u00a0 Every follower of Christ needs that same daily alignment of priorities and commitment to character.<\/p>\n 3.\u00a0 Solitude produces an attitude of awe and dependence.<\/p>\n When we \u201cunplug\u201d long enough to contemplate the magnificence of God, we destroy an elevated sense of self.\u00a0 I witnessed this on a recent camping trip, as I watched a fellow camper miss a unique moment to grasp the wonder of God and his creation, because his eyes were locked on his smart phone.\u00a0 His heightened sense of self squelched an opportunity for awe.<\/p>\n In short, determination to live FOR CHRIST must be combined with a daily isolation to be WITH CHRIST.<\/p>\n One such man who combined a determination to live for Christ with the discipline to daily isolate himself from distraction to be with Christ was Robert C. Chapman, who lived in the 1800\u2019s in England.\u00a0 He was referred to as “the saintliest man I ever knew” by Charles Spurgeon \u2013 high praise from the man known as the Prince of Preachers. On one occasion, Chapman expressed his life’s goal in these words:<\/p>\n “Seeing that so many preach Christ and so few live Christ, I will aim to live Him.”<\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0It\u2019s been over 100 years since Robert Chapman has died, but today, like then, many preach Christ, but few live him.\u00a0 Determine today to life FOR CHRIST by isolating time to be WITH CHRIST, free from all distractions, most notably those with an ON\/OFF switch.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On a recent trip to Williamsburg, my family and I enjoyed spending an afternoon strolling through the revolutionary city, observing many skills that, in hindsight, I recognized have become obsolete as a result of technology. Those who practice the art of shoemaker, silversmith, blacksmith, brickmaker and wheelwright are all under siege from technology\u2019s automation.\u00a0 In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":449,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/dscf0485-600x400.jpg","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/dscf0485-600x600.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"Kent Husted","author_link":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/author\/khusted\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/empoweringaction.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}