For the last year or so, I've been working my way through a loaned (and much appreciated!) copy of The Complete Works of Oswald Chambers. I'm currently reading Christian Disciplines, vol. 2, which is divided into three sections or books: "The Discipline of Prayer," "The Discipline of Loneliness," and "The Discipline of Patience." At the moment I'm in book 2, "The Discipline of Loneliness." This is the Lord's inimitable timing, since loneliness is something I've begun to feel more deeply recently. It comes to a certain extent from isolation, but also from the weariness of watching certain things go increasingly awry over the years and being unable to change them. For some reason, all those "increasingly awry" things have a tendency to band together and turn into one big awry elephant as we age. ...Which is why the perspective in the passage below hits me like fresh air flying through an open window. The solitude -- even the weariness! -- is a means God uses in training us to His purposes... if we allow it to be. |
"The culture of the entirely sanctified life is often misunderstood. The discipline of that life consists of Suffering, Loneliness, Patience and Prayer. ...Our Lord was thirty years preparing for three years' service. The modern stamp is three hours of preparation for thirty years of service. John the Baptist and Paul were trained in the massive solitudes of the desert, as are all characters of God's heroic mould." Oswald Chambers, Christian Disciplines, vol. 2, book 2, "The Discipline of Loneliness" |