This is the fourth post in an eight-part series looking at the rhythm of going to ‘a quiet place.’ I hope and pray it’s a blessing for your life in Christ!

A curious pattern.

I find it fascinating that at some of the most crucial times in Jesus’ life and ministry, he chooses to withdraw to ‘a quiet place’. 

Before he chooses the twelve disciples, he’s in the desert hills alone (Luke 6:12).

After hearing of John the Baptist’s death, he doesn’t publicly berate Herod—instead choosing to take a boat to a solitary place (Matt 14:13).

And following a long day and night of ministry, he forgoes a sleep in and rises ‘very early’ to pray (Mark 1:35). 

In fact, if we trace the most difficult times in Jesus’ ministry throughout the gospels—more often than not we find they’re accompanied by a retreat to the wilderness.

Weakness is the way.

In our greatest times of need, we’re often encouraged to work harder, be strong, or hold out for the next thing we’re looking forward to on the horizon. What we read in the gospels goes against the grain of everything we’re told to do culturally. 

But the way of Jesus is to admit your need for God and drop everything to be with Him.

Why?

It’s because the wilderness isn’t a place of weakness, but one of strength. It’s where we meet with God and access a perspective beyond our circumstances. It’s how we fix our eyes on the author and perfecter of our faith, when it feels like our world is falling apart. And it’s where we find the sustenance for the difficult times we all face.

Some self-reflection.

If Jesus needed to go to a quiet place in the hardest moments, we do too. We need strength from God to navigate life this side of eternity. The next few posts will look at some practical ways to find time, guard a space, and humbly enter a quiet place—but let me ask you this question first: what is stopping you from taking say, thirty minutes a week, to sit alone in the quiet with God and pray, read, reflect, and receive?

Is it practical, like a lack of time or too much going on in life?

Is it desire, where your heart just resists the thought of it?

Is it uncertainty, about what to do with that time, or what might bubble to the surface?

Take some time to pause and reflect, and we’ll work through some practical ways to implement it later this week and next. No matter what it is, hear these words of Jesus: ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ (2 Cor 12:9)