DAILY DEVOTIONAL – August 17, 2020
“Fortitude in Solitude”
Prayer: God, we know you see our hearts and know our hearts better than we do. The intimacy with which You know us and care for us is wonderfully beyond our comprehension. Call us and lead us by Your Spirit each day to rejoice in Your love for us and the closeness we have with You as our Heavenly Father. In Jesus name, amen.
Scripture: 1 Thessalonians 4:1-12 (summary excerpts)
Finally, then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor. For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore whoever disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you. Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.
Devotion – “Fortitude in Solitude”
It has been my experience in life that most people don’t like being alone for extended periods of time. If there was ever any question about why people generally don’t like being alone and what negative effects result from prolonged loneliness and isolation, just take a look at the skyrocketing drug overdoses, alcoholism, and suicides that have resulted from just the past 4 months of our nation shutting down and going in quarantine. Whether you agree with the practice or not, this is precisely why prisons use solitary confinement as a form of discipline and punishment for inmates.
Over the course of my career as a pastor, I spend a lot of time talking with people, and I have found that just as much if not more than the discomfort of being alone, people really do not like sitting in silence when someone else is in their company. I think this is why many people say that getting on elevators and waiting in the doctor’s office is so awkward and uncomfortable.
While being alone and sitting in silence with other people may leave us feeling uncomfortable or awkward, when it comes to the health of our spiritual life and our life lived in a relationship with God, there is a considerable fortitude that is found in solitude; and considerable strength that is found in quietness and separateness with God.
There is a wonderful Chasidic story about the child of a rabbi who used to wander in the woods. At first his father let him wander, but over time he became concerned. The woods were dangerous. The father did not know what lurked there. He decided to discuss the matter with his child. One day he took him aside and said, “You know, I have noticed that each day you walk into the woods. I wonder, why do you go there?” The boy said to his father, “I go there to find God.” “That is a very good thing,” the father replied gently. “I am glad you are searching for God. But, my child, don’t you know that God is the same everywhere?” “Yes,” the boy answered, “but I’m not.”
Jesus often went off to be quiet and alone with His Father not because He ever felt distant from God, but because there was a strength and a comfort that could only be gained by being separated from everyone and everything else, and separated to God alone. This is exactly what the Apostle Paul is encouraging us to do in our text today as well from 1 Thessalonians 4 when he says, “we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.”
Living separated to God and finding the spiritual fortitude we need to remain faithful in our walk with Christ comes in the quiet times of solitude that are often so difficult to come by. Scripture certainly isn’t calling us to live as hermits or to isolate ourselves from people, but rather to live with our hearts in a quiet state of solitude toward God and with God so that, as our passage says, “you may walk properly before outsiders.” Our solitude with God greatly influences the solidarity in which we walk with each other, and especially as the church. The Apostle Paul will emphasize this later in 1 Timothy 2:1-4, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
Friends, we can look forward to and cherish a time of quietness and solitude each day, because our Lord has promised, just before ascending back to the Father and disappearing from physical sight, “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” – Matthew 28:20.
Thanks for joining me for another time of devotion in God’s Word, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today, and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
