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words, except perhaps the words He
whispered to His Father.
The wilderness experience of Jesus
underscores for us the differences between
godly solitude and simple aloneness. Solitude
was the habit Jesus chose, not just the
accidental opening that occurred when all
companions had departed and the crowd
temporarily couldn’t find Him. Solitude
doesn’t happen when others leave, but
when we leave the places where we usually
work, rest, and play.
Jesus walked into solitude as a bridegroom
preparing for a wedding—joyously,
expectantly—certain that this
chosen time alone would deepen both
His joy and His usefulness. Thus we
find Mark telling us that after Jesus’
first recorded day of healing and teaching,
“in the morning, having risen a
long while before daylight, He went out
and departed to a solitary place; and
there He prayed” (Mark 1:35). This isn’t
the Man of sorrows we see here, sleepdeprived
and tortured in spirit. No, this
is the Son of
man who found
in solitude the
grace and fullness
from which
to give unstintingly
of Himself
when He chose to be with others. “From
hours spent alone with God He came
forth, morning by morning, to bring the
light of heaven to men.” 4
It was also in solitude that Jesus
experienced the conviction that the
words He chose to speak were important
and consequential: “The words that
I speak to you I do not speak on My own
authority; but the Father who dwells in
Me does the works” (John 14:10). Solitude
provided Him the witness that He
was quoting no one other than His
Father when He spoke the truth to multitudes
and to individuals. No human
Solitude doesn’t happen
when others leave, but when
we leave the places where we
usually work, rest, and play.
could justly claim that Jesus had borrowed
their ideas or phrases, or that His
teaching was originally theirs. Even the
hardened Temple officers confessed to
His sworn enemies, “No man ever spoke
like this Man!” (John 7:46).
As it did for Jesus, the habit of chosen
aloneness will offer us a refuge from the
din of soulless technology and the spin
of others’ words. It will offer us, as it
did Him, the certainty that we are offering
the world something solid, significant,
and life-saving when we tell the
Savior’s story. The aloneness that we
choose—where we are apart from
everyone else but fully with the
Father—allows us to reverently say to
the world what Jesus said: “The words
that I speak to you are spirit, and they
are life” (John 6:63).
The choice of solitude results in
certitude.
www.AdventistReview.org | September 19, 2013 | (837) 21