Alone Time With God

It’s been a couple weeks since I wrote anything on this blog. I have a good excuse, I really do.

Two weeks ago I took four days to backpack into the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area of West Virginia to spend some alone time with God. The next week Paula took five days to go to a silent retreat at a Trappist Monastery to spend some alone time with God. I’m not quite sure how Paula’s absence that second week kept me from writing my blog, but somehow it seemed to.

But what I want to talk about is alone time with God. It’s absolutely vital, and in our modern society it’s very hard to get enough of it.

Of course, it doesn’t need to be four or five days at a time. A little time every day, a little more time once a week, can make a huge difference.

Writer Henri Nouwen tells of the time he visited Mother Teresa. He spent quite some time telling her all the concerns he had about his life and his spirituality. Her response was simply this: “Well, when you spend one hour a day adoring your Lord and never do anything which you know is wrong, you will be fine.”

Wow!

The first part reminds me of St. John of the Cross, who would spend hours just “gazing.”The second part reminds me of John Wesley’s definition of Christian perfection: to reach a place where you are not aware of committing any known sin, and everything you do is done in love. Put them together and I think Mother Teresa was on to something.

Paula told me a great phrase she came across on her retreat: Christians should seek to take what is implicit in Christianity, and make it explicit. What is implicit? God is love; God made us to love; when two people love each other, they love to be alone with each other. You make that explicit by getting alone with God.

It doesn’t have to be four or five days, it doesn’t have to be a wilderness or a monastery. It can be your car while you drive to work, if you can just turn off the radio. It can be your house before anyone else wakes up, if you can ignore the newspaper. It can be the church when nobody else is there. It can be your basement or back yard or a closet.

Wherever it’s just you and God is fine. Lovers find a way to sneak off someplace and be alone together. There’s no special way you have to do it. Just find a way, and get alone with God. And listen.