The Lonely Place
Summary
What does it look like to actually be alone with your thoughts — and why do most of us avoid it? In Luke 5, at the height of his popularity, Jesus doesn't lean into the momentum. He withdraws. Dominic Jackson looks at the practice of silence and solitude in the life of Jesus and asks what it might look like to recover that practice in a world designed to keep us distracted.
Questions for reflection
When did you last sit in silence without reaching for your phone or filling the space with noise? What came up?
Dominic suggests that distraction is one of the biggest threats to spiritual life today. Do you agree? What are your most common distractions?
He describes the quiet place as sometimes scary — where unresolved pain and fear tend to surface. Does that resonate with you? What do you tend to reach for instead of sitting with it?
What's the difference between talking about God and talking to God? Which one describes most of your spiritual life right now?
Jesus became more intentional about withdrawing as his demands increased. What does your pattern look like — do you tend to pull back or push through when life gets busy?
What would "subtraction" look like in your current schedule — what could you remove to make space, rather than adding something new?
What would your version of the "desert in the busy city" look like — a practical, realistic place or time where you could meet God in silence?
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Do you remember — and if you're in your early twenties or younger, this might be before your time — do you remember being bored?
Do you remember that phenomenon? In the olden days, you'd go to an appointment — renewing your license, paying your registration, a trip to the DMV. And if you didn't bring a book or a crossword puzzle, your options were pretty limited. You could strike up a conversation with the person next to you. You could watch the number on the screen get closer. You could twiddle your thumbs, stare out the window. That was about it.
For most of the day, out in the world, you were just alone with your thoughts. Maybe in the 90s you had a Walkman. But before that, you just passed the time reflecting, worrying, planning, contemplating, regretting, expecting, thinking. Just walking around thinking.
That is largely not the case anymore. A recent Microsoft survey found that when asked "When nothing is occupying my time, I reach for my phone," 77% of people said yes. And I think that number is probably a little low. And it's not just boredom — it's existence. Even when we're crossing the street or sitting at a baseball game, the phone is out. It's not just filling empty time anymore; it's filling all time.
Now, this is not an anti-technology sermon. This is not a reflection on social trends. It's more of a reflection on you and me — our thoughts, our boredom, our loneliness, our introspection. Phones and technology just happen to be the example I'm using today. But the point is this: we have, for the most part, lost the art of being bored.
And with that loss come missed opportunities — to look inward at ourselves, and to look outward past the algorithms and the noise and the cute cat videos, at God. Uninterrupted, undisturbed, undistracted.
This is why I believe one of the biggest threats to our spiritual lives today — and this is my opinion — isn't atheism, hedonism, secularism, nationalism, or progressivism. I believe one of the biggest threats to you and me is distraction.
So today the question, the invitation, is this: what would it look like to sit in the silence?
Today we discuss silence and solitude.
[Moment of silent prayer]
The Spiritual Rut
Here's my hot take. I only get a couple a year, so stay with me.
Every now and then, someone will reach out to me as a friend or a pastor. After we've caught up a bit, they'll share what's really going on. And they'll say something like, I just feel stuck right now. Or, I feel like I'm in a spiritual rut. I feel far from God. Or, my faith feels exactly the same as it did a year ago, three years ago, ten years ago. And I don't know what to do.
I think the hope is often that I'll say, here's a great podcast. Here's a book. Here's a sermon — take two, call me in the morning, all your spiritual problems will be solved.
But that's not what I suggest. Instead, I usually ask two questions. Not to guilt anyone, but to help them diagnose why they feel disconnected or apathetic.
And nine times out of ten, the answer to both questions is no.
The first: Are you part of a community? Are you walking alongside other people who are pursuing Jesus? Are you in an intentional community where you are known, seen, and valued — where you can be honest and vulnerable and yourself, and where Jesus is at the center?
And the second: Are you actively and intentionally spending time with God?
Sometimes people will say, well, I pray when I'm driving. I go to church. I listen to worship music on my run. And I say — that's genuinely great. But I'm talking about something different. There's a difference between calling your spouse on a long drive and spending quality time with them. There's a difference between watching your kids at practice and taking them on a camping trip. Likewise, there's a difference between talking about God and talking to God. Between thinking about God and spending time with God.
Jesus, when asked the greatest commandment, gives two answers — love God and love others. Those two things, I'd suggest, are still a good place to start.
I've preached a lot on community — on being the church outside these four walls, on the church looking more like a family than a private club. But what I don't preach on nearly as much is the importance of retreating to the lonely place. Of quiet moments with God. Silence and solitude.
That's what we're looking at today.
Henri Nouwen once said: "Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life." Not my words — take it up with Henri. But this is something the early church, the desert fathers and mothers, the disciples of Jesus, and as we'll see in a moment, Jesus himself all understood as crucial to the walk of faith.
St. John of the Ladder: "The friend of silence comes close to God."
St. Elizabeth of the Trinity: "It seems to me that I have found my heaven on earth, since heaven is God, and God is in my soul. The day I understood that, everything became clear to me... There is so much silence in my soul. It is like heavenly music. And it is in this silence that I find God."
According to followers of Jesus across the centuries: if you want to connect with God, look for him in the lonely place.
Jesus and the Lonely Place
But what does Jesus himself have to say about this?
Luke 4:1: Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and at the end of them he was hungry.
Luke 3 has just wrapped up. John the Baptist has been arrested. Jesus arrives on the scene. His public ministry is beginning. This is how the mission of God kicks off.
The first thing Jesus does is nothing.
The first public act of Jesus is to retreat to a lonely place — led by the Spirit — where he is spiritually attacked for forty days. Not exactly how I would announce my presence to the world. But that's exactly what Jesus does.
Then skip to Luke 5, our text for today. Jesus heals a man. He tells him to keep it quiet. Of course, that doesn't happen. And as word spreads and the crowds grow, what is Jesus' response? More miracles? A teaching moment? A recruiting push? A speech about what's happening in the world?
Verse 15: "The news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed."
And this wasn't an isolated incident. It was a regular practice.
Luke 6:12 — before an important decision, what does Jesus do? He withdraws into silence and solitude. Matthew 14:10 — after the death of a close friend, what is his response? He retreats to the wilderness. Matthew 14:23 — under the pressure of popularity, what does he do? He goes away to pray. The Gospel of Luke alone records this pattern nine or ten times.
And what's remarkable is the pattern. The more popular Jesus becomes, the more he is in demand, the larger his platform grows — the more he slips away. Which is the complete opposite of most of us. The busier we get, the more we pile on, and the less time we have for rest, reflection, or solitude.
Corrie ten Boom once said: "The devil can't make you sin, but he'll make you busy." Sin and busyness have the same effect — they cut off your connection to God, to other people, and even to your own soul.
Or as Carl Jung put it: "Hurry is not of the devil; hurry is the devil."
St. Francis famously said every one of us needs a half hour of prayer a day — except when we are busy. Then we need an hour.
You might be very important at your job. You might have real responsibilities and genuine demands on your time. And I would lovingly say, in all of that, you are nowhere near as busy or important as the Son of God. The Savior of the world was remarkably interruptible, never seemed to be in a hurry, and consistently prioritized his quiet time. Most of the miracles in the Gospels happen when Jesus is on his way somewhere else and gets stopped. Most of the time, he's probably on his way to pray.
Three Reasons to Practice Silence and Solitude
With the rest of our time, I want to offer three reasons to consider practicing silence and solitude — maybe this week — and then a few practical next steps.
1. To Spend Time with Jesus
It might seem obvious, but it is often the quiet moments that remind us that the most important thing we can do is simply be with God.
Oswald Chambers writes in My Utmost for His Highest: "The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service for him." Chambers is reminding us that the first call for followers of Jesus is to be delighted in him, to be satisfied in him — not to try and do something for him.
Even though I've read that book many times, even though I've been following Jesus for over two decades, I still have to remind myself: I don't need to continuously earn God's attention. I don't need to keep doing more and more to maintain his love. What God desires first is simply a relationship. Just showing up.
2. To Find Healing
This one is not always fun — at least not at first. But it is so important.
One of the primary reasons I avoid quiet time — beyond busyness, beyond the pressure to perform — is that it can be genuinely scary. When I am alone with my thoughts, sometimes my mind drifts to dark places. Theologically, practically, existentially. And underneath all of that, if you keep looking, is pain. And underneath the pain, fear. Places I haven't fully found healing in.
So though my quiet time is supposed to be spent with God, the person who often shows up there is an anxious, stressed-out, broken person.
Brothers and sisters, this is actually good news. You cannot find hope and healing until you recognize your hurt. You cannot be filled with the bread of life and the living water until you recognize that you are thirsty and hungry and in need.
One of the reasons I avoid silence is because my mind scares me, and I have wounds I'm not fully ready to address. And what's easier is turning on a show, putting on a record — or for others it's a bottle, it's pills, it's getting high, it's sex, it's throwing yourself into more work. Anything other than being alone with yourself.
And yet St. Jerome says: "We are never less alone than when we are alone."
St. John of the Cross: "Silence is God's first language."
I heard a pastor once compare our attempts at hiding from ourselves — which ultimately becomes hiding from God — to getting a headache. The second my head starts to hurt, I go find Tylenol as fast as possible. I don't stop and ask: How's my water intake? How much caffeine did I have? How long have I been staring at a screen? When did I last sleep well? Instead: how do I make this go away as fast as possible?
Silence is the opposite of that instinct. It's pressing in. It's not numbing or medicating or distracting. It's getting to the root. And yes, it can be painful — but we are not doing it alone.
3. To Be Like Jesus
Want to be more Christlike? One good place to start is by practicing the ways of Jesus. Jesus spent a lot of time in prayer. Maybe we should do the same.
And it's here that we encounter God. To my non-Christian friends — and frankly even some of my Christian friends — this might sound strange. If you've never experienced the Holy Spirit in this kind of time, I would simply and lovingly ask: have you ever created space to?
Prayer is as much about listening as it is about talking, if not more so. And in order to hear and encounter and grow in Christ, we have to first move toward him.
So why turn off Netflix this week, or the news, and sit in the silence? To sit with Christ. To find healing from him. And to become more like him.
Practical Next Steps
One thing I've learned over twenty-plus years of following Jesus, specifically about silence and solitude: as crazy and busy and noisy as life is, we have to plan for it.
I know that sounds completely backwards. But we can't just decide to not turn on the TV. We also have to actively say no to a thousand other things in order to say yes to one. This doesn't happen on its own. It takes intention.
God told the Israelites to gather extra bread the day before their Sabbath so they could actually rest. When Elijah is running for his life and has a long journey ahead, the first thing God wants him to do is move toward rest and healing. We labor toward letting up. We work toward rest. We listen for silence.
A few practical starting points:
Start small. Start where you are, not where you think you should be. Five minutes before you head out the door. Choosing not to grab your phone the first moment you wake up. Sitting in the dark with a cup of coffee. The smaller the start, the better the chance of sticking with it.
Think subtraction, not addition. Don't add solitude to your already-packed schedule. Think instead about what you can remove to create the space — and then resist the urge to fill it with something else. Formation is about doing less, not more.
You get what you put in. The more fully you give yourself to this practice, the more life-changing it will be. The more you dabble or look for a shortcut, the less it will transform you.
Remember the J curve. Experts on learning tell us that when mastering a new skill, we tend to get worse before we get better. You might feel itchy, anxious, or emotional when you first try to sit in silence. That's okay. Expect it to be a bit awkward before it gets easier. Stay with the practice.
There's no formation without repetition. Stay the course.
And whatever this looks like for you — it probably won't be forty days in the desert or a solo backpacking trip. My wife wakes up at 5 a.m. every morning, reads her Bible, stretches, works out, and has an entire day before anyone else in our house wakes up. I set my alarm for 7:29.
But the other night, Megan was asleep, and I went out to our driveway, lit the fire pit, and just sat in the dark. The only light on the street. And I just talked to God for a while. My surfer friends have their moment sitting on the board, waiting on a wave, marveling at the water. A friend of mine leaves the house an hour early every Monday, drives through Dunkin', parks in the farthest spot from his office, eats his donut, drinks his coffee, and weeps. I asked him if he was okay. He said: I just start talking to God, and I can't help but get emotional at how good he's been to me.
5 a.m. with your Bible. A quiet night on the deck. A donut in an empty parking lot. I think God looks at all of that and smiles.
Whatever it looks like: find a way to say no to something else so you can say yes to Jesus. Turn off the noise — the to-do list, the overthinking, the agenda. And if you're easily distracted like me, hear this from Thomas Keating: "If your mind gets distracted a thousand times in ten minutes of prayer, it is a thousand opportunities to come back to the loving presence of Jesus."
Stay the course.
I'll close with Ruth Haley Barton: "The invitation to solitude and silence is an invitation to all of life. And the beauty of a true invitation is that we really do have a choice. We can say yes or no. God extends the invitation, but he honors our freedom and will not push himself where he is not wanted. Instead, he waits for us to respond from the depths of our desire. When your invitation comes, I pray you will say yes."
And so do I. And I believe so does Jesus.