Solitude - The Furnace of Transformation

This week at ROC we talked about hearing the voice of God (John 10:1-10). I wanted to share some excerpts from Henri Nouwen's book The Way of the Heart that have really challenged me in this area.



"Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self... Solitude is the place of the great struggle and the great encounter - the struggle against the compulsions of the false self, and the encounter with the loving God who offers himself as the substance of the new self."



"In order to understand the meaning of solitude, we must first unmask the ways in which the idea of solitude has been distorted by our world. We say to each other that we need some solitude in our lives. What we really are thinking of, however, is a time and a place for ourselves in which we are not bothered by other people, can think our own thoughts, express our own complaints, and do our own thing, whatever it may be. For us, solitude most often means privacy. We have come to the dubious conviction that we all have a right to privacy. Solitude thus becomes like a spiritual property for which we can compete on the free market of spiritual goods. But there is more. We also think of solitude as a station where we can recharge our batteries, or as the corner of the boxing ring where our wounds are oiled, our muscles massaged, and our courage restored by fitting slogans. In short, we think of solitude as a place where we gather new strength to continue the ongoing competition in life."



"In solitude [the place of conversion] I get rid of my scaffolding: no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract, just me - naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken - nothing. It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something."



"We enter into solitude first of all to meet our Lord and to be with him and him alone. Our primary task in solitude, therefore, is not to pay undue attention to the many faces which assail us, but to keep the eyes of our mind and heart on him who is our divine savior. Only in the context of grace can we face our sin; only in the place of healing do we dare to show our wounds; only with a single-minded attention to Christ can we give up our clinging fears and face our own true nature. As we come to realize that it is not we who live, but Christ who lives in us, that he is our true self, we can slowly let our compulsions melt away and begin to experience the freedom of the children of God. And then we can look back with a smile and realize that we aren't even angry or greedy and more." [Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart, 1981]



I used to think of "quiet time" as a very busy time, doing lots of bible reading and then praying through an extensive list of prayer requests. I would leave quiet time relieved that I had done something I had been thinking of doing for quite awhile, but not rested and definitely not transformed.



I love these words from Henri Nouwen though. By the time I had read this book, I was already experiencing a transformation in the way I came to time with God. I was listening more, I was meditating slowly, thoughtfully and prayerfully on scripture, and I was resting. Henri challenged me to go further into understanding this time as a time to lay at his feet with no props or accolades, and simply to cry out to be made more like Him. There is something about going to that place where we are stripped and honest and ugly, and discovering love in the truest sense from the source Himself. It's only in this place of broken humility that true transformation happens. I have seen it in my life over and over and over. When I offer to Him exactly who I am, all my flaws and fears and vices, He is faithful to breathe life, bring freedom and change me in such a way that clearly He gets all the glory because it is so beyond me.



Do we trust the furnace of transformation, or do we think we need to hold onto all the things that keep us entering the place of the great struggle and the great encounter? Do we hear the voice of Jesus and follow? By trusting his voice, and entering the furnace of transformation, we encounter our salvation.