In what practical ways do you find solitude and rest?

King David knew that our souls need quieting. Psalm 131 is one of my favorite passages of Scripture, and I remember it when I’ve wandered from the well of rest that God offers to us all.

…I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me…

For me, practical ways to find solitude and rest need to be planned out long term, short term, and daily.

Life gives us seasons of rest, and we can expect lulls where we can come up for air. However, if we don’t plan, we may find ourselves caught in the riptide of life and unable to swim in to shore for a much-needed breath of air and replenishing of our strength.

Here’s what I try to do:

Plan long-term rest. My husband and I plan at least two weeks a year to go somewhere to completely unplug. It doesn’t have to be pricy; it can be anywhere at all, as long as we are somewhere away from phones, email, networking, and multi-tasking. We’ve found that planning to vacation in areas where there is no cell phone reception keeps us accountable, and we are truly able to get to a point of healthy detachment from the busy lives we lead. Underneath, we find our essence, the very thing that keeps us going, the heart of Christ becomes clearer in us, joy returns. It’s a wonderful place, and I look forward to this time during the busy seasons. Knowing I’ll get this vacation keeps me focused and hopeful when I begin to feel drained.

Plan short-term rest. I plan a day or a half day every week for this. I do something outside, avoid tweeting, updating, or talking too much. Tell your co-workers when this time is scheduled for you and ask them to honor it. Rest can mean focused prayer. Rest can mean a great nap. Rest can mean some much-needed time with your spouse. Something I always loved about Mike Yaconelli at National Youth Workers Convention was when he would say, “Some of you, instead of attending another seminar, need to lock yourselves in your rooms and don’t come out until Sunday.” He couldn’t have been more right. While there were probably quite a few NYWC babies that resulted from that approach, the other byproduct was rested and content youth workers who are able to lead out of strength, not out of emptiness.

Plan daily withdrawal. Every day. Exit the grind a couple of times a day. Withdraw to recharge. Pray. Play basketball at lunch. Take a walk around your building. Drive to get a snow cone. Change it up and find rest for your soul. When you exercise, you can’t have a conversation with more than one person, you can’t dial a phone, you can’t answer one (technically you can, but you shouldn’t unless you want that iPhone to be a cracked phone). Find a few ten-minute periods when you can read Scripture, be in nature, move around, and listen to the Spirit of God moving in your life.

I don’t have this figured out, but what I do know is that rest and solitude are essential. My life has never been busier, and I’ve never had more opportunity for emotional and physical breakdown. However, this one thing has helped me to recover and recover well.

You can read some other blogs I’ve written on the same subject.

Rest: We all need it.
The Best Four-Lettered Word for Your Ministry.

The questions are: Why aren’t you resting? ● What’s keeping you from it? ● Where is solitude found in your life? ● In the car, on a retreat, in focused prayer?

Wherever you find rest and solitude, go there often. You’ll be so glad you did.

Four years ago, a good ministry friend had just returned from a six-month retreat after retiring from eighteen years in ministry at our church. She offered me her unneeded block of time at a Christian retreat center. She apparently thought (and my wife concurred) that I would benefit from being silent for a few days, alone, by myself. Not wanting to seem like a scaredy cat, I took her up on the offer.

I checked in, I ate dinner, lay down at 7pm, passed out, and woke up fourteen hours later. I didn’t even know I was tired. After a day there, alone in a cabin, just me and God, I knew that I was going to need more than the two nights and stayed for three. This was honestly one of the most challenging things I have ever done. No schedule, no agenda, no something to have to get to next, no phone, computer, and then no watch. Just me and all my thoughts.

I read a lot, walked outside in the woods, sat in a sweet rocking chair, answered some questions from my friend Carma like, What is your relationship with yourself?, wrote some thoughts, read my Bible, walked some more. I discovered that my busyness was convenient in helping me avoid deep life stuff, that it supported the perception that I was in control, and that stopping required me to trust—trust I could handle silence, would catch fresh air as I dug deeper than ever before, and that God would want to hold me in his arms smelling the way I did spiritually.

I have been back every December since then. Intentional silence in solitude has become my rest, even if just once a year. I crave it, long for it, am filled by it, and see the amazing fruit from it for the rest of the year. I have coughed up spiritual hairballs, found out I was rebellious because of insecurity (which also explained why I got fired from my youth ministry job), forgave my mom, overcame the lies that made me fear being a father to my son, finally discovered that I have never really feared God, and have seen him give me that fear and awe I asked for.

After my five-day, four-night stay this last year, I received a love of God’s Word that has continued in me, making me hungry for it like never before. After forty-one years on this earth, God’s Word is working in me and changing my heart and making me want him like never before. My time away is not a perfect lifestyle of rest and solitude, but it is working for me and giving me the heart change to seek after rest more and push me further away from my dependence on my busy rhythm to sin and angling my leaning in to the one who requires my trust, fear, and dependence.

Satan does a good job at convincing us that what we hear about moving is truth i) I will get it later. ii) I don’t need rest. iii) If I rest, I won’t do what I need to do. iv) People will think I don’t care, am selfish, or am not a team player.

But it turns out they are lies. Mark 2:27 says that God created Sabbath and rest for us; that slowing down was modeled for us in creation (Genesis 2:1-3). Think about it: Did God really need to rest? Yet he commands us to stop and rest. Jesus modeled it as he felt the energy drain from him as he spent time with people (Mark 5:27-30). Just an FYI: Ministry is tiring. Mark 1:32-37 tells us that he left some healing undone to go and find rest and be still in the presence of his Father.

He couldn’t serve us unless he refueled daily with his Father. Couldn’t find direction until listening to God’s voice and will (John 8:28-29). And couldn’t serve us if he didn’t remain obedient to his Father by being still and knowing who was God.

The psalmist tells us: “Be still, and know that I am God.” Notice the order? Stillness followed by the knowledge that he is God. We often fear what we will discover in the silence. God says that he is there if we only submit and rest in him.

Isaiah 58:9-14. He wants us to cry out for him so he can answer.

I’ve started to think about it like training. It begins with understanding how solitude and rest help me be more productive and healthier, even when it seems to be an interruption to the schedule. Learning to have a long-term view of what’s going on with my work, my body, my mind, my spirit, and my community as well as a sense of self-awareness around how I function best and fine-tuning my recovery as well as I fine-tune my workouts. This way, I make solitude and rest a priority, and eventually I see the benefits in my output and attitude toward life!

First, identify the challenges to good solitude and rest:

Being an extrovert. I’ve learned that in order to be truly focused and productive with my time, I need people, even when I’m resting. Sometimes my best moments of rest and solitude have happened in a busy coffee shop, with my journal open or a good book.

Watching the clock. When my to-do list gets out of control, the last thing it feels like I should do is take time out. But my stress hormones and mind start to treadmill too fast for me to keep up and send me to panic mode if I don’t take space to breathe and form a plan to attack that mounting pressure.

Expectations need to be managed. The people pleaser in me rushes to the surface when an unrealistic deadline or expectation is placed on me. (Trust me, I never create unrealistic expectations for myself ;-), right?) We have to learn to practically address what robs us of rest and healthy functioning. In the first year of my internship, I was asked to do 6-10 hours but did nearly 20 hours every week to meet the unspoken expectations. Setting a healthy pace for myself also results in a healthy pace for my ministry, my volunteers, and my students.

Then, I need to make the most of the rest breaks. I find my creativity is at a high in the morning as much as I like to reflect on the day before as sleep brings perspective and insight. First I like to clear the decks, making lists of all the compartments, any practical solutions or actions I need to take to problem solve or move a project forward. Once my head is clear, then taking a walk. Either leaving the phone behind or turning it off helps. Energizing my creativity benefits my whole day.

Like I said, often the biggest obstacle I face is myself. Learning not to feel guilty about not taking a call or not booking a last-minute meeting in time I’ve set aside. I use daily ritual to measure my time. I start the day in a local café, I hit the gym at a certain time each afternoon. I guard those times fervently because they are valuable headspace.

I’ve learned I sometimes suffer from FOMO: fear of missing out. However, like most fears, it just needs to be faced. Missing the odd social outing actually isn’t the end of the world! The benefit is learning that I actually quite enjoy my own company at times. Sometimes a struggle with solitude is that we don’t really know the person we’re spending all that time with. We know ourselves at work, at church, with family, and with friends, but learning how to spend time with yourself is like any relationship. Quality time is the only way to get through that awkward stage! Think about it like taking yourself on first, second, and third date. By the time you get to double digits, you’ll have a much better idea what’s going on.

As a single person, I’ve sometimes felt the time demands and pressure double. While other ministers have families and commitments that keep them at home, sometimes people feel your time doesn’t have as many restraints. Push back gently on this. I don’t go home to share the burdens of my day with anyone; that part’s all on me!

I’ve often said that good structure allows for spontaneity. The truth is, keeping small and regular breaks for solitude and rest in my days and weeks means that I’m rarely at a deficit now.