Alone With God


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“Do not consider it a great deprivation, that you must go into the hills and mountains, but seek for that retirement where you can be alone with God, to learn His will and way….” CL 14.

The Silence of the Soul Makes More Distinct the Voice of God-Here Rest is Found in Him

“[T]he education that has God back of it, will lead men to seek after God, “if haply they might feel after Him, and find Him.”

The Infinite is not, and never will be, bound about by human organizations or human plans. Every soul must have a personal experience in obtaining a knowledge of the will and way of God. In all who are under the training of God is to be revealed a life that is not in harmony with the world, its customs, its practice, or its experiences. Through study of the Scriptures, through earnest prayer, they may hear His message to them, “Be still and know that I am God.” When every other voice is hushed, when earthy interest is turned aside, the silence of the soul makes more distinct the voice of God.  Here rest is found in Him.  The peace, the joy, the life of the soul, is God.”  FE 440, 441.

 

A Forest in the High Mountain Country

One of America’s greatest criminal defense attorneys, though we cannot say that he is right in all his concepts by any means, yet has understood the need to be alone, we would say, before God. He writes,

“Let me take you to a forest in the high mountain country of Wyoming. The spruce and lodge pole pines rise as tall as grasses to the ant. No sound except the wind through the needles. No sound except the chipping of an irreverent squirrel. And then no sound at all.

“I stood there as a frightened child, the snow falling, each horizon looking the same, the towering trees in every direction blotting the way…

“I have stood there alone in the forest waiting for my father to return from the hunt to fetch me, like a doe returning for her deposited fawn. I have strained my eyes to see the dark form appear from the shadows, his legs, long and sure, the toes turned slightly in like those of an Indian. Where is he? I peer into the trees ahead, but the way is dark, and the snow falls on the lids and leaves large drops on the lashes…

“Now I see the movement through the shadows, I stare, my eyes bulging like the eyes of a fawn in panic. The movement is in my direction. I cannot make out its form in the shadows. Then I see my father moving easily as any forest creature. Now he sees me and smiles. The face, the face of God, the snow gathering on his shoulders, the steam coming from his lungs. He has come for me, and all is right in the world once more, and I will never, no never, be alone again. 

The Father’s Presence Changes Our World in an Instant

“As he walks up to where I stand, it is as if he had never left, and as if I had never been alone. His presence is the infinite magic of God. He has changed my world in an instant.” Gerry Spence, Seven Simple Steps to Personal Freedom. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001, pp. 69-70.

 

We Are Completely Secure in The Presence of the Mighty Unconquerable One

Therefore, it is when God’s presence goes with us, as He promised to Moses. “My presence shall go with thee.” Exodus 33:14. When God’s presence, His face, goes with us, everything is changed. Now ere are completely secure. One mightier than all the universe, one unbounded in power, wisdom, intelligence, love, and might-the Mighty, Unconquerable One-goes with us now. The aloneness from man opens us up to the presence of God.

I remember walking alone at night in winter on the prairie. My path led through our pasture, and as I hiked under Orion and the Pleiades, I suddenly became aware of two powerful presences walking with me. It was our two horses. They loved to walk with me, and gave me their fellowship to the far end of the pasture. I remember being in the depths of the mountains in the dead of winter, far from the haunts of man, working to survive the cold that dipped to twenty-five below zero. In the midst of the struggle, a stellar jay appeared, and went out of his way to sing his jaunty song of triumph, courage, good will and friendship, just for me. I have, like Elijah with the ravens, even after treasured stellar jays. They have a special place in my heart.

 

Greatest friendship Known to Man

To be alone with God is to have the greatest Friendship ever known to man. I have had a Companionship with Him in the mountains for years on my cycle, riding past waterfalls, rivers, lakes and forests that could never be obtained in the same way on the college campus in those years.

If a Person Has Ever Learned to Act Alone, How Will He Ever Forsake All to Follow Christ?

There are certain critical passages in life that have to be accomplished alone-that is, alone from man, and in the company of God alone. One of these is the answer to Christ’s call to discipleship. If a person has never learned to be alone, to act alone, to move out alone, how will he forsake all to follow Christ?

“So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple.” Luke 14:33. “And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit eternal life.” Matthew 19:29. The power of being alone with Christ moves the world-forsaking all, putting the heavenly Fellowship above the earthy lies at the foundation of the gospel.

 

Learning to Stand and Struggle Alone With God

“I have never known a daffodil that failed to bloom because it stood alone. I have never known a chickadee that failed to fly because it struggled alone in learning the use of its wings. I have never known a man who grew unless he experienced alone time to discover himself.

 

Alone Is When It Happens

“Alone. Then is when it happens. In silence, alone. The radio off. How could the radio in the car be off? I have seen people panic at such silence grab for the knob, like a drowning person for the life buoy. When the voice on the radio is off, they are like ducklings who, when the mallard mother has ceased her soft quacking, swim in tight little circles in a great pool of terror…Cell phones now insure us that we need not be alone while we drive, while we eat, while we walk down the street. Out television, sets protect us from being alone…

“People who do not experience aloneness have breathed only the stale air of others. However, in aloneness I say it happens. I write alone-my gift to myself and to you. I dream alone…

People Want To Be Swallowed Up By the System, to Be a Slave in the Presence of Slaves

“We wish to be swallowed up. ‘Swallow me up,’ we cry to the mob called system. ‘Take me.’ It is better to be taken than to be alone. It is better to be a slave in the presence of slaves than to be free…

 

The Mystery

“When I walk through the woods alone, I am not alone…I feel the mystery-yes, the spiritual. I sense an attachment to the world that I rarely experience in the company of others. Alone, I am not alone. Some call the experience God.” –Gerry Spence, Seven Simple Steps to Personal Freedom. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001, pp. 70-74.

Out of Aloneness Rises the Mighty Soul Power That Alone Comes From God’s Presence

Out of aloneness rises the mighty power of soul that comes from knowing God. It happened to Elijah, Moses, David, John the Baptist, Enoch, and Jesus-the mightiest that have ever walked the earth. Out of this being alone with God is built the shelter of the presence of God in the soul-he who dwells in the secret of the Most High, shall abide under the protection of El Shaddai, the Mighty, Overpowering One. This is the most secure place of all places on earth. No citadel offers such protection, no fortress such safety.

The mighty power of God is received into the soul in one way only-the way of absolute self-surrender. Then the soul is held by Christ as a fortress against everything Satan can throw against it. The soul is then impregnable to the assaults of Satan.

“When the soul surrenders itself to Christ, a new power takes possession of the new heart. A change is wrought which man can never accomplish for himself. It is a supernatural work, bringing a supernatural element into human nature. The soul that is yielded to Christ becomes His own fortress, which He holds in a revolted world, and He intends that no authority shall be known in it but His own. A soul thus kept in possession by the heavenly agencies is impregnable to the assaults of Satan.”  DA 324.

This is precisely why Neuro-linguistic programming [NLP] is so utterly satanic. It seeks to break down this fortress that Christ erects in the heart. The erection of this Christ occupied fortress of the soul is the only defense against satanic attack.

No One Else Can Do the Wrestling, No One Else Can Make the Decision

 

The surrender to Christ takes place in the awesome aloneness of just Christ and me-in the soul. There is no one else there. No one else can make the decision. No one can do the wrestling. This is the taking of personal responsibility at it most primal level. This is the foundation of Protestantism and Republicanism-those principles, which are daily being erased from the hearts, minds, and laws of the nation. 

This self-surrender to Christ results in invincible individuality that is produced immediately when the soul surrenders to Christ. This is the opposite of the weakness, debility, and perversity of pantheism. That is how important aloneness with God is for the triumph of the soul.

 

 

 

 

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