twenty-three

Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of reading (at least a lot more than I had been doing since I got out of school). I’m currently plowing through Life Together by Bonhoeffer, which is a thesis on Christian community.

Tonight I read a section about spending time alone. Alone in meditation, reading, prayer, and intercession on behalf of others in your community. I think this is a beautiful discipline, aloneness, and I’m realizing how much I appreciate it.

Being married has helped me develop a new sense of how I spend my time. Being with some every day (on the weekends almost every minute) has made it much more clear to me where I need to seek alone time and where I need to engage my community (wife) and others. I feel like I’m finally learning that balance after 9 months, although I’m sure I’ll take much longer to refine and define what personal time with God and in study means over the rest of my life.

Taking time alone, in silence and meditation, grants me the ability to relax a bit, to really soften the more rigid self that I put on during most of the day. I feel like God uses times of reading and reflection to shape me. Bonhoeffer remarks that the silence with God is a reverence in that "the stillness of the temple is the sign of the holy presence of God in His Word." We reflect upon God and we take time in awe of God.

The outcome of silent reflection, reading, meditation, and the like are joy and God’s peace. I find that through my times away from others, I can be better around others. Bonhoeffer also states, "Only in fellowship do we learn to be rightly alone and only in aloneness do we learn to live rightly in fellowship."

I pray that I learn this spiritual discipline, for the sake of my relationship with God and for the sake of my community with others.

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