I recall years ago hearing a preacher say he actually enjoyed driving distances to make hospital visits to parishioners. “Alone in my car: the one place no one can get to me,” he said, ruing the fact that he felt constantly at people’s beck and call.
That was before cell phones. Only in the early days of my ministry did such a time exist. The preacher’s words remind me of the hyperconnected world we live in.
I find myself asking aloud, even if only to myself, “Where’s my cell phone?” And if I can’t find it, I appeal to Lori, “Could you call my phone?” We get nervous if we can’t locate our phone. It’s our connection to reality as we have come to know it.
There’s even a word for the anxiety some people feel when they are without their phone for an extended period of time: “nomophobia.” It stands for “no mobile phone phobia.” Symptoms include intense agitation, panic, sweating, and an increased heart rate.
Never able to be alone and nervous when we are: this is the world we’ve created.
That’s why it’s good to distance ourselves from it. It’s good to get alone, just by ourselves, even if the thought of it frightens many of us.
Jesus modeled a different way for us, a way we could attempt to emulate during the Lenten season. After feeding the five thousand, Jesus dismissed the crowds and “went up on the mountain by himself to pray” (Matthew 14:23). Mark records that “very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus departed and went out to a desolate place, and there prayed”(Mark 1:35). Luke notes that as crowds gathered to hear him and be healed, Jesus, rather than basking in the attention, “would withdraw to lonely places and pray” “(Luke 5:16).
Lonely places: for Jesus, they weren’t occasional retreats—they were part of his life rhythm.
The Lenten season invites us into the same pattern of intentional withdrawal. But what happens when we step away?
Lori and I have been watching the Netflix series, “Alone.” The contestants are assigned to remote wilderness locations, facing not just physical challenges—building shelters, finding food, avoiding predators—but also profound psychological battles, where the mental struggle often overpowers the physical challenges. We watch as contestant after contestant caves mentally. One participant observed, “The hardest part isn’t being cold or hungry. It’s being alone with your thoughts.” Another noted, “Out here, you can’t run from yourself anymore.”
It’s fascinating that at the end of Jesus’ 40-day period of isolation, without food or water, Satan tempted Jesus first at the point of his physical need, then with mental and spiritual attacks. Once we are compromised physically, it’s easier to falter mentally and spiritually.
That’s what makes solitude so frightening and so rewarding: it forces us to face ourselves, our vulnerabilities, our resentments, fears, and unhealthy attractions.
When Jesus chose solitude, he did it to spend time alone with the Father. He withdrew to God, not from people. His time alone wasn’t an escape but an engagement—wrestling with his mission, listening for the Father’s voice, fortifying his soul for the work ahead. He emerged from solitude more connected to others, not less.
This Lenten season, the challenge isn’t to survive isolation like reality TV contestants. Instead, Jesus invites us into purposeful solitude—carving out space to pray, to listen, to be still.
It could be setting your alarm thirty minutes early, taking a lunch hour to be alone with your thoughts, or fasting from social media each evening.
Where and how you find solitude isn’t as important as the desire to meet God in the quiet places where our souls can finally hear.
This Lenten season, try breaking your routine and paring down habits (dare I say: addiction?) with preoccupation. One response leads to another until we feel overwhelmed by the pressure to accept urgent invitations to seemingly immediate needs. As the Tanzanian proverb says, “Little by little becomes a lot.”
In solitude, we discover what the Alone contestants eventually learn. We are stronger than we think, more fragile than we admit, and desperately in need of something beyond ourselves.
The difference is that in Christian solitude, we’re never truly alone.