Alone With God

Mathew  6:6  But whenever you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is hidden. And your Father who sees from the hidden place will reward you.

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Praying is the bounden duty of a Christian. Prayer is often spoken of as communication with God, but it is also communion with God or fellowshipping with God. When we pray we are recognizing God for who He is and for what He has done for us. When we pray we demonstrate our humbleness before him. When we carry a catalog of our needs to him, we are confessing our emptiness, our poverty to him, we declare our total dependence on Him.

There are various kinds of prayers – personal prayers, family prayers, corporate prayers, fasting prayers, special prayers, intercessory prayers, praise and worship, thanksgiving, supplication, etc. If prayer is communication with God, it should be a two-way affair - not only petitioning but listening also. Is God talking to you? God speaks to His followers even today in various ways. An author lists 12 different ways in which God speaks to us today. Amidst the hustle and bustle of our harried lives, we often don’t have the time or patience to listen to God.  This happens with even  with those who pray sincerely and regularly. If you can’t hear God’s voice, it might because you are in a hurry, you are surrounded to much noise, you are not spending time alone with God.

The   Bible gives many examples of people who knew the importance of spending quality time alone with God – people who spoke to God and were spoken to.

è Exodus 3:1-5      Moses meets the Almighty

Moses grew up surrendered by the bureaucratic bustle of Pharaoh’s business as he was being groomed as the future emperor. There must have been no dearth of entertainers playing pagan music and dancing at  Pharaoh’s court. For a man like that, the deafening silence of the desert  of Median would have been a terrible shock, with the howling winds and the occasional bleating of one of the sheep providing the only distractions. The last thing Moses expected there was to come face to face with the Almighty God! Nothing in his chequered life has prepared him for this!! God spoke to Moses out of a burning bush and turned this exile shepherd into the most fearless spokesman for his people and the greatest lawgiver of all times. Thus empowered,  Moses was able to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, out of slavery and laid the foundation of the Israelite nation that was to provide the mosaic to receive the Saviour of the world.

è Genesis 32:22-31 Jacob and a Celestial Wrestler

Jacob was about to meet the long lost brother he had cheated out of his most precious possessions and blessings. Travelling in the company of a large family, an army of servants and huge movable property, he was in a particularly vulnerable situation. Having sent his family ahead of him to a relatively safe spot, he decides to spend a tense night by himself, presumably in prayer. That’s when God decided to contact Him. The Bible tells us a ‘man’ visited him with whom Jacob continued a wrestling match all night, wanting to be blessed. The mysterious visitor refused to give his name, but changed Jacob’s name and dislocated his hip, as a sign of the divine identity of the nightly visitor. As the sun rose over Peniel, the nation of Israel was born. An ambitious deceiver was transformed into the founding father of Israel during one lonely night.

è Judges 6:11-16 Gideon receives his commission

Gideon was threshing wheat (in a winepress!) all by himself - actually hiding, out of fear for the enemies - when a celestial visitor appeared to him. When he was informed that he was the chosen vessel in God’s hands to liberate the Israelites from the harassment of the Medianites, Gideon was incredulous. But eventually he would submit himself to God’s will and allow Him to use him. Meticulously following God’s instructions, he was able to achieve God’s object. The enemies were beaten hallow and the oppressed nation was freed.

è Luke 3:2-3 John, the Baptist – forerunner of the Lord

John, the Baptist lived and preached in Judean dessert, away from the bustle of city life. He avoided all confrontations with the religious establishment and concentrated only on his work. He preached about the kingdom of God and about repentance and forgiveness. This way he was able to teach and warn the ‘brood of vipers’ and baptise those who and came forward. He must have had ample time to spend alone with God from whom he received his commission. Incidentally, his birth was foretold by Gabriel to his father when Zachariah was serving at the temple, all alone.

è Acts 10:1-6 Peter and Cornelius come together

To Peter who was raised in strict Jewish traditions, the Gentiles were anathema. Peter had to be brought out of this mindset. When God sent Peter to go and stay with a tanner at Joppa a step had already been taken in this direction. (Leather work was considered an unclean occupation by orthodox Jews).

Cornelius was a righteous Roman officer, a praying man with a reputation of giving generously to the poor. An angel appeared to him in a vision and asked him to send for Peter. At the same time God sent Peter a vision, when he was alone praying.  God was working to soften his attitude and to make him understand he cannot call something unclean if God has made it clean. It was in this state of mind Peter visited Cornelius who was waiting for him in the company of his friends and relatives. When they heard the gospel Peter presented them, a great change came over them and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Peter was amazed at the fact that even Gentiles received the Holy Spirit and had henceforth had no hesitation in baptizing them. Thus the door of salvation was opened to the whole world.

è Mark 6:31 Christ sought solitude to pray

The Lord was highly popular during His life time on earth and great crowds flocked to Him continuously – to hear Him, to see Him, to be healed by Him. The Bible says he and disciples were so active serving the public that they had no time even to eat. In spite of this rush, Jesus often managed to be alone with the Father, to pray and to meditate, and taught the disciples the value of solitude – like the following verses make clear:

Mark 1:35 Before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up and went out to an isolated place to pray.

Luke  5:15, 16   But the news about Jesus spread all the more, and great crowds came to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses.  Yet He frequently withdrew to the wilderness to pray.

Jesus insisted on the importance of spending quality time alone with God.  See our key sentence Mathew 6:6 above. He continued the above pattern throughout His ministry, until it climaxed at Gethsemane.  He left the disciple, took only His “inner circle” of disciples with Him. At one point He asked the three to “wait and pray”, then went further ahead to pray alone. This prayer was so intense, His grief so severe that His sweat turned into blood. Armed with the effect of this solo prayer, He was able to proceed to the cross.

Learn to spend quality time with God by yourself. Shut out the noise of your lifestyle that is clamouring for your attention – complaints, criticisms, quarrels, arguments, demands for attention, disputes, discussions, defending your point of view, judging others, verbal abuse etc. Shut out the noise of cheap entertainment, ungodly music; learn the value of solitude.

Elijah was running away (from God?) as fear and discouragement assailed him. After the spectacular victory he secured for the Lord, he was not elated, but bitter and disappointed. Israel had violated His commandments, destroyed His altars and killed off His prophets. Now the whole power of the government machinery was honed to find him and destroy him. Why is God not doing anything? He wanted to lie down and die. As he was hiding in a cave in solitary confinement, God comes on line. He pointed out to Elijah his assessment of the situation was flawed, that there were still 7000 pairs of knees in Israel that have not bent before Baal.  Besides, his work was not finished. There was a colossal task waiting for him. He was going to alter the fate of three countries and change the course of history. Armed with this information he returned to his country.

Thrown out unceremoniously by her master, in the midst of an unforgiving, harsh desert, Hagar, a slave girl from Egypt, realised there was help from “the God who sees her”.  Jonah came to his sense in side the stomach of a fish, he promised to behave and was rescued and sent on his mission. When they exiled John to distant Patmos, his enemies were sure his work had come to an end. But that’s where a whole, new world opened before him. It is his solitary imprisonment that gave us the book of Revelations! When you think you are alone, that is when God is with you.

He promised Joshua (1:5) “No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you”.

Jesus promised us (Mathew 28:20) ‘’surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age’’.

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