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Time Alone in the Natural World
Quite often in my ministry I have spoken with people who would rather spend time out in the woods hunting, or out on a lake or by a river fishing, or hiking up a mountain than come to church. They would often confess to me that they felt closer to God out in nature. In researching the ministry of Jesus, I have come to believe they got it half-right. Jesus did spend significant amounts of time in the natural world as a means to restore his soul and refresh his mind. After his baptism by John in the Jordan River, Jesus spent time in the wilderness in a time of fasting and prayer. The Gospels record that he was known to depart from the buzz of his disciples and the pressing crowds that followed him to “lonely places” – places that were apart from human habitation. Spending time alone in the natural world was a way that Jesus used to reinvigorate himself after expending so much personal time and energy in service to others. However, this was always balanced by spending time in fellowship with his disciples, worshipping with them, and engaging in the sort of education and learning that can only occur in human society. The key word here is balance. Jesus balanced the intensity of daily human interactions with the solitude of communion with the natural world. |
The Spiritual Disciplines of Jesus |
Humans are as much a part of the natural world as are other animals and plants, trees, rivers, mountains, sun and stars. We have developed over centuries and millennia in direct contact with the natural world, and human psychological health is dependent upon continuous engagement with the rest of creation. However, human civilizations have increasingly become separated and even alienated from the natural world. By losing contact with nature, humans can forget the fact that they are also creatures. They have a Creator. The human hubris of thinking that we are the authors of our own existence and the final arbiters of our actions arise out of this creaturely amnesia.
Spending time in natural places, and especially wild places can restore us to our place in creation. It works in concert with devotional practices by expanding our vision and exercising our sense of awe and wonder. The beauty we encounter feeds our souls in ways that we are unable to accomplish out of our own volition. The natural world comes to us as a tremendous gift – a blessing we have not earned and cannot claim to deserve. And so it serves as a tangible experience of God’s grace.
Anyone who has taken time apart to go hiking or camping or even just sitting in a park or garden with no pressing agenda can understand the psychological and emotional benefits that that time apart can provide.
Imagine, for example, that you are sitting in a cabin at a writer’s retreat along a river. Steep canyon walls lift the horizon high above the river. Trees surround the cabin and embrace the river shores on either side. The unrelenting, unresting as well as unhasting pace of the water as it tumbles and trips over the rocks outside the window calls you to a different pace of life. Along this river there is space to think and ponder, permission granted to wonder and consider, room simply to be and not prove yourself. You can drop your pretenses, set aside your feigned self-importance and hang up for a time the demands placed uponyou. The trees and rocks and river don’t care if you are the CEO of a multinational company or a garbage collector. Here in this spot in nature you can simply be.
The times Jesus spent in the lonely places of the natural world were just such retreats from doing into the depths of being. Such time apart serves to settle us back and center us down into the blessed giftedness of life, a gift given to us beyond any consideration of whether we have earned it or deserve it in any way. Time apart in the natural world can return us to the mysteries of grace and providence.
Spending time in natural places, and especially wild places can restore us to our place in creation. It works in concert with devotional practices by expanding our vision and exercising our sense of awe and wonder. The beauty we encounter feeds our souls in ways that we are unable to accomplish out of our own volition. The natural world comes to us as a tremendous gift – a blessing we have not earned and cannot claim to deserve. And so it serves as a tangible experience of God’s grace.
Anyone who has taken time apart to go hiking or camping or even just sitting in a park or garden with no pressing agenda can understand the psychological and emotional benefits that that time apart can provide.
Imagine, for example, that you are sitting in a cabin at a writer’s retreat along a river. Steep canyon walls lift the horizon high above the river. Trees surround the cabin and embrace the river shores on either side. The unrelenting, unresting as well as unhasting pace of the water as it tumbles and trips over the rocks outside the window calls you to a different pace of life. Along this river there is space to think and ponder, permission granted to wonder and consider, room simply to be and not prove yourself. You can drop your pretenses, set aside your feigned self-importance and hang up for a time the demands placed uponyou. The trees and rocks and river don’t care if you are the CEO of a multinational company or a garbage collector. Here in this spot in nature you can simply be.
The times Jesus spent in the lonely places of the natural world were just such retreats from doing into the depths of being. Such time apart serves to settle us back and center us down into the blessed giftedness of life, a gift given to us beyond any consideration of whether we have earned it or deserve it in any way. Time apart in the natural world can return us to the mysteries of grace and providence.
Next Practice: Fasting.
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Click on the images below to read about JP21-BiggerMind; JP21-Bigger Heart; JP21-Bigger World; JP21-Bigger Life; JP21-Way of Ways.
