The Power of Solitude - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, October 26th. Do you feel like you always have too much to do? The busier you are, the more you need to seek seclusion with the Lord.

Here's more on the power of solitude. When God created this world, He did a fantastic job, we all agree, amen? He did a fantastic job creating this planet, hanging it out here in space, stars and sun, moon.

Beautiful sandy beaches and palm trees, snow-capped mountains, flowers, insects, fish. I mean, think of all the things God's created. But God didn't create anything that He personally could fellowship with until He created man. Do you realize why you're alive? God created you for the purpose of fellowshipping with you, loving you, and being loved by you. You say, no, no, no, no, wait a minute, my parents said to me I was a mistake.

No, you weren't a mistake. God allowed you to be born because God chose to fellowship with you and to express His love towards you. And listen, and to demonstrate to you how much He loves you. For example, He created angels to be servants, to send them out.

When He comes back, He's coming back with His holy angels, the Bible says. Servants are created by God to serve Him. You know why He created you? To love Him. That service is a part of loving Him. But He created you to love Him.

Now listen to this, He created you for the purpose of loving you. For example, He can create mountains by just thinking them into being. But they can't love Him. He can create all kind of animals, but they can't love Him. He can create galaxies, millions and millions and millions and millions of stars and planets and all the rest of that. They can't love Him. There's only one part of His creation that can love Him, and that's you.

You think about that. Therefore, because you're the only creation that can love Him, that makes us very, very special. And if you'll think about what He said in the very first chapter of the Bible, let us make man in our image. He didn't say that about dogs, cats, elephants or whales. He didn't say that about trees, forests. He didn't say that about mountains.

He didn't say that about plains and deserts. The only thing about which He said, let us make in our own image. Why did He make you and I in His image? Why did He make you and me in His image? To love us. To demonstrate His love.

Think about this. Even when He created you and me to love Him, He created Adam and Eve to love Him. And they disobeyed Him.

And the Bible says in Isaiah fifty-nine, their sins separated them from God. All of a sudden, this wonderful fellowship between sovereign God who created it all was broken. And you know one of the first things they felt?

Loneliness. And why would they hide themselves if they didn't feel something was wrong? Immediately, God dealt with them. The Bible says He took skins and wrapped up their bodies so that they wouldn't feel naked.

What is He doing? Immediately, God is shedding blood as a symbol of all of His messages that would come down through the centuries all the way to the cross to show us how much He loves us. Think about this. God so loved you and me and still does that He sent Jesus Christ to the cross, put all the sin debt of all mankind on Him as the ultimate Lamb of God, the final sacrifice to take care of our sin.

That's the, you know why? Because He loves us. He desires to fellowship us. He wants us to listen to Him. And He wants, listen, He wants to speak to us. He wants to show us the best plan for our life.

He wants us to know who He is. Listen, the more somebody loves you, the more they want to know who you are. And the more somebody loves you, the more they want you to know them. Why do they love you? What is it within them that causes them to love you? And you and I cannot look within ourselves and come up with anything that would cause us to say, well, no wonder He loves me.

Look at me. None of us would say that. But we look at Him and think, we look at ourselves and think, how could you love me?

And with Him, it's no problem at all. You know why? That's what He had in mind when you were born, to love you. They expressed that awesome love with you. So, when you look at the Scripture and you see what He says, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, why?

That's why we're here. He wants us to know how much He loves us, and He wants us to love Him in return. Now, fellowship with Him is preparation for lots of things.

And so, it isn't just a matter of a one, of a two-way street between us. This whole idea of solitude, spending time with Him. If you don't understand who He is, you're not going to spend time with Him. If you don't love Him, you're not going to spend time with Him.

If you don't recognize your needs, you're not going to spend time with Him. If you don't like Him, if you think God's just this something out yonder, you're not going to spend time with Him. And so, what we have to ask is this. What is God up to in all this? And so, if you'll think about it, if His primary purpose, if His primary purpose is fellowship, then whatever we do in this time of solitude is going to contribute to that.

Now, watch this. When I talk about setting aside time and just being alone with Him by yourself, what do you do? Somebody says, Well, you know what? I'd feel real foolish out here by myself sitting and thinking, Okay, what's happening?

No. Listen, when you decide to set aside time to be alone with Him, He is going to reward you. He's going to reveal Himself in ways that you're not going to find out any other way. He's going to speak to you about things that you're not even, listen, you don't even bring up. He's going to answer questions and solve problems and deal with your life and give you direction and divine guidance because He loves you. And because you have been wise enough and disciplined enough to set aside time so that it's not you and somebody, it's just all you and God. Is He going to reward you? Yes, He is. Will He bless you in ways that you never imagined?

Yes, He will. And I think about how this first got to me, and I didn't even know what the word solitude meant. I didn't even know what meditation meant. I just knew that when I was about fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, along in those years especially, I would, I lived next to a creek, I mean, way up the hill from that creek. You had to walk about a quarter of a mile to get down to it.

It was called Fall Creek. Many times I would go down there and sit and just think. I'd go by myself. I just, I wanted God, I wanted to learn how to listen to Him. And at that time, I probably didn't know very much about that.

And I would just listen and ask God to show me, speak to my heart, help me to understand. Now, I'm just a kid, not knowing really what's going on, but something inside of me, I knew that I needed to be alone with Him. So, God began to just take those times, just being quiet, and He began to work in my life. And taught me one of the greatest lessons I hope I've learned. That spending time alone with Him is the greatest time saver, the greatest stress reliever, tension reliever, because I lived in a household, my mother loved me to death. Sweet, wonderful, godly woman.

But the other member of that household was totally different. And sometimes I would go up there and get in the basement of that church and cry out to God for my mother. And sometimes just be quiet and ask the Lord, help me how to live in this circumstance. And I learned that if I just be quiet, somehow He would work it all out. And so, when you say, well, what do you do?

Well, sometimes you read the Bible, sometimes you don't. And here is the most difficult thing to learn. Don't do anything but listen. You say, but my mind just wanders all over the place.

I understand that. But if you say to Him, Father, I want You to show me how to focus on You. Show me who You are. Help me to understand Your love for me. Help me to understand if I'm making mistakes. Help me to understand if I'm not doing my best. Help me to understand. You know what? He will speak to you and somebody says, well, how does He speak to you? Let me just say this. God has a unique way of revealing Himself and speaking to you in a way that you can't really explain that to anybody else. I could explain it to some degree. But He's got to speak to you.

There's only one of you. And if you will listen to Him, He will speak to you and make it very clear what He wants you to do. If He didn't, it would be an expression of love. He knows the hunger of your heart. He can sense, listen, the intensity of your thirst or lack of it for Him.

And remember why you're there. Every single one of us, you are being loved by God today no matter what. He's loving you in your pain, in your suffering, in your sickness, in your sorrow, in your joy, in your pleasure. He's loving you. Sometime we don't get that. We don't understand. We think, well, if He doesn't do it a certain way, then certainly it must not be true, genuine love.

Yes, He does. And one thing for certain, there'll be times in your life when He is the, He's all you have. And remember we said in the very beginning, loneliness is not from God.

It's a result of our circumstances and things that happen in our life. And I can remember the loneliest time in my life when I'd get out of the bed at night, get out on my knees and cry out to God to help me, strengthen me, change whatever needs to be changed in me, but God don't leave me like this. And how many times I would just kneel there and be quiet? After I'd expressed all of my anxiety and my frustration and my fears, it's like God would give me this awesome sense of assurance. It's going to be all right.

And I can remember how many times I crawled back in the bed and next thing I know it was morning. That's the way God deals with loneliness sometimes. You just, next thing you know, it's all over. You see, the reason that solitude is the best way to handle all that, if you're dealing with whether it's tension, stress, or loneliness, whatever it might be, is that I can change this for the moment, but I can't keep it changed. I can go talk to this person, but they're going to be gone.

Or this person. And while wise, godly counsel may be what God sends you to. But here's the thing you have to remember. Because He loves you, He will never walk out on you. There's something about being alone with Him in solitude. He, I guarantee you, He will surprise you what He says. He will surprise you. He will say things to you that are moments of absolute essential knowledge to defend you from something that's going to happen, to make you aware of what's out there that you're about to face. He will surprise you with awesome promises. And this divine energy that flows through you, you'll be able to be more productive.

You'll be able to be more capable of doing more than you ever dreamed without even being tired. You see, it isn't, somebody said, how do you explain that? Thank God I don't have to explain it. You can't, in other words, you can't explain a miracle. If you can explain a miracle, then it's not a miracle. If you can explain what God does in the human heart and the human body and the mind, that's not a miracle. That's who He is.

And what I want you to see is this. He loves you. He wants the best for you.

All He wants is, listen, give Him some time that is not you and, but just you. Just you. In every single one case, somebody says, well, I live in places, in my house there's people everywhere. Well, my mother knew if I locked the door in my bedroom, she knew what I was doing. She knew I was talking to God. Because I said to her one day, I said, sometime I just need to be by myself and I'll talk to anybody. She said, sweetheart, I understand that. My mother, she came and tried to open the door, turned the door knob and it was locked.

She never came back until I came out. She encouraged me. Listen to me as a parent. One of the wisest things you can teach your children or your grandchildren is the necessity, the absolute essential necessity of being able, listen, to spend time with the Lord Jesus, God, by yourself, no music, no TV, just by yourself and learn to listen to Him. And you see, if you encourage your children to do it and you practice it, I don't think I can ever remember saying to a younger person, whether it's a small grandchildren or some old of that, no one's ever just turned me off when I've said, if you'll let Him, God will teach you how to listen to Him.

It'd be a very foolish person who doesn't want to learn how to listen to God. And so, you see, it's not that whether He'll decide to teach you or not, you know what He's waiting for? For you to give Him the time to get you in a position where your questions are not the issue, tomorrow's schedule is not the issue, just you and Him, focused upon Him. You say, well, I don't know if that'll work for me.

Oh yes, it'll work for you. What you have to decide is, do you really and truly want to get to know this awesome God who created you for the sole primary purpose of loving you, being loved by you, and allowing Him to demonstrate this awesome love, the summit of which is the cross of Jesus. And from that point on, His love spans from every direction. Why? Because He loves you. So, when I think about loneliness, then I think about solitude and the difference.

That's a great deal of difference. Now, so let me just take a moment or two to mention this. How do you turn loneliness into solitude? How do you, in other words, we're all going to be lonely at times. How do you turn loneliness into solitude? First of all, look at it as a gift from God that He's given you to spend time with Him.

I can remember when loneliness hit me really bad, I complained and moaned and groan and prayed over it and everything else. And just like one day God said to me, do you realize that your being alone has made it possible for us to spend more time together? Do you realize this is a gift from me that you and I can have a deeper relationship than ever before? You need to make this an appointment.

Instead of complaining, recognize that I love you and I'm always going to be there. And this is a time that you and I can spend together. You open the Word and I'll teach you things you're not going to know any other way. Do you realize that this is an expression of my goodness to you to give you time? And I want to challenge you to look at your lonely times as a wonderful opportunity to you to get to know who this God is you say you believe in. And one thing for certain, He'll open the doors of your mind and your heart and your spirit and your emotions. You will learn so much more. You will experience more, more productive, more energy, more happiness, more joy, more peace, more confidence, more assurance, more courage, you name it.

Why? Because you've been spending time and living in the presence of all of that. Given to you freely by God who loves you unconditionally no matter what. You can't beat that. So, away with the pills and the alcohol and the affairs and all the other stuff.

And get smart. And remember, you have a loving Heavenly Father who's totally committed to you. And all, listen to this, all He wants from you is just yourself. Loving Him quietly in solitude and allowing Him to forever express Himself to you, in you, and through you for His glory and your good. Thank you for listening to part two of The Power of Solitude. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.