Then we enter back in, as light and bread, to a hungry, harassed, and helpless world (Matthew 9:36). We carve out a season for spiritual respite, in some momentarily sacred space, to feed our souls, enjoying God there in the stillness. We withdraw, like Jesus, to “a desolate place” to commune with God (Mark 1:35), and then return to the bustle of daily tasks and the needs of others. The healthy Christian life is neither wholly solitary nor wholly communal. Retreat and Reenterįor two thousand years, the teachings of Christ have called his people into rhythms of retreating from the world and entering into it. Rather, we find timeless and transcultural postures that can be replicated, and easily applied, by any follower of Jesus, anywhere in the world, at any time in history. And the picture we have of Christ’s habits is not one that is foreign to our world and lives and experience. We know exactly what God means for us to know, in just the right detail - and we have far more about Jesus’s personal spiritual rhythms than we do about anyone else in Scripture. We may have but glimpses of Jesus’s habits and personal spiritual practices in the Gospels, but what we do have is by no accident, and it is not scant. “How many of us have the presence of mind, and heart, to discern and prioritize prayer as Jesus did?”
And if Jesus, even Jesus, carved out such space in the demands of his human life, shouldn’t we all the more? But he chose again and again, in perfect wisdom and love, to give his first and best moments to seeking his Father’s face. Imagine what “good” he might otherwise have done with all those hours. Even as God in human flesh, he prioritized time alone with his Father. We not only hear one distracting Siren call after another, but an endless cacophony of voices barrages us all at once.Īnd yet, long before Pascal, Jesus himself modeled for us the very kind of habits and rhythms of life we need in any age. The competition for our attention is ruthless. How hauntingly true might it be, that we are unable to sit quietly? Four hundred years after Pascal, life may be as hurried and anxious as it has ever been. It’s a sweeping claim, but it might just be the kind of overstatement we need today to be awakened from our relentless stream of distractions and diversions. “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” -Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
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