What is Solitude?

Solitude is time alone with God, away from the noise. Not silence for its own sake, and not just rest, though rest often comes. It’s the practice of stepping out of the stream of stimulation long enough to hear something quieter than the noise.

How to practice it

Start with 15 minutes in the morning before you look at your phone. Sit. Don’t make a list. Don’t plan your day. Just be present. Let your mind settle. Over time, extend it to 30 minutes or an hour. Consider taking a longer period of solitude each quarter — a morning or a full afternoon alone with God.

The hardest part is the first few minutes of resistance. If you push through it, something often shifts.

Why it matters

Most of us are never fully quiet. There’s always a podcast, a notification, a task to get to. Solitude pulls back the curtain on what’s actually going on inside us. It’s where we find out who we are when no one is watching. Jesus got away regularly — not occasionally. He treated it as a non-negotiable. That’s worth paying attention to.