Beth Moore on Solitude

from Beth Moore's "Beloved Disciple" pg 79-80

...we are each on our own before God. Every life is separate and distinct. We may think we have partnerships in life or ministry without which we cannot exist or operate. We may think that everything in the Christian experience is about body life, but it’s not. Yes, we’re all parts of the body of Christ, and we function in each generation as parts of a whole; but until we each stand before God with a shocking awareness of our solitary standing, I’m not sure we have a clue about our part.

I don’t believe that one of us who is serious about God will forego this test. It’s no 30 minute quiz; it’s a lifelong essay test written in blood. Will we loose our hold on anything and anyone else as a prerequisite to following Christ in the intensity of aloneness? If you can answer quickly, I’m not sure you grasp the question’s seriousness....

moments come when the awareness of my solitary estate before God so radically overwhelms me that I fall to my knees and weep. Bitterly. Frighteningly. The feeling is so intense that at times I can hardly bear it...

How much of your life you’ve invested in Jesus Christ is the issue. Have we held some back for ourselves- just in case He’s not as real, as powerful, as active as we thought? Just in case He doesn’t come through? Just in case He really can’t be taken at His Word? Or have we banked everything we have and everything we are on the reality that Jesus Christ is Lord of all the earth? We will never fulfill our destinies until our hope is built on nothing less.

We can lock arms with fellow servants just as the disciples did. We will experience a measure of God’s anointing and perform some significant works. For the parts of a whole to work as God intended them, however, each part must stand on its own before a highly personal God. If we insist on a boat full of company, we’ll miss the waves where we ride only one at a time. When a wave of loneliness suddenly erupts, ride it. Let your stomach rise and fall with fear and peculiar excitement. Don’t fight the feeling. Don’t just busy yourself. Ride the wave straight into the presence of God and experience the adventure of feeling you’re the only one there.

The intensity of your solitary estate is often most obvious when you fight to reconcile the facts of life with the words of faith. Do you grapple with questions like, Why did God let my brother die but perform a miracle for my best friend? I’m not sure if John ever figured this one out...

Solitude is not so much the place we find answers as the place we decide if we’re going on, possibly alone- without them. Many of us will. Why? Because the privilege of wrestling with such a holy and majestic God still beats the numbness and pitiful mediocrity of life otherwise. Sometimes we don’t realize how real He is until we’ve experienced the awesomeness of His answerless presence. He knows that what we crave far more than explanations is the unshakable conviction that He is utterly and supremely God.