ISOLATION

This morning my mind is concentrating on isolation. There are both very positive and negative sides to isolation. The positive is the joy and blessing of being alone and lost in silence and solitude as we isolate from others to receive what only the Father gives to us personally while in isolation. The negative is when we isolate to hide, cover-up, escape what is normal, to possess for our own sake alone, to hoard, to spend all our emotions only on our own needs.

Another consideration is the difference in being in isolation while still very connected to others in community and being isolated without community. The first is simply a discipline and isolation is the vehicle to produce discipline. The second is escape to loneliness, wounding and rejection and without community or very little community.

(I wrote this 16 years ago in my Journal in 2004. It seems very appropriate here in 2020.)

“Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.” Jesus