If you want to grow in your understanding and practice of silence and solitude, one of the most helpful things you can do is learn from Christians who have studied silence and solitude, written about silence and solitude and reflected deeply on this subject over many years.
The books below are biblical, practical and deeply encouraging. Each one approaches silence and solitude from a slightly different angle – but all of them will help you grow in these disciplines so you can go deeper in your relationship with God, hear God more clearly and allow God to restore your soul.
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The Ruthless Elimination Of Hurry – John Mark Comer
If you are longing to find for rest your weary soul, hear from God more clearly, grow in your relationship with God and become more like Jesus… start here.
The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry isn’t just about silence and solitude. It’s actually about something bigger – how the noise, distractions and busyness of modern life is stunting our spiritual growth and stopping us from becoming more like Jesus.
The discipline of silence and solitude is one four practices Comer recommends for addressing that problem and refocusing our lives on God.
The other three are:
- Sabbath
- Simplicity
- Slowing
Comer’s argument is that the noise, distractions and busyness of modern life are profoundly damaging to our souls.
We are constantly rushing from one thing to another. Our phones are always demanding our attention. There is always another email to answer, another notification to check, another job to do, another achievement to chase…
And then we wonder why we feel anxious, exhausted, overwhelmed and spiritually dry.
Comer argues that the pace of our lives matters enormously when it comes to following Jesus. If we’re constantly rushing, distracted and overstimulated, we’re going to find it very difficult to cultivate the kind of love, joy and peace that characterised Jesus’ life.
And this is where the practice of silence and solitude comes in.
Comer reminds us that Jesus’ life was pretty busy too – and what did he do about it? Jesus regularly took himself off to a “lonely place” or “quiet place” (both eremos in Greek). Comer points out that if Jesus needed to spend regular time in the eremos, how much more do we?
He goes on to draw the parallel between our relationship with God and a human marriage – what would happen if a human couple never spent any time alone together? The marriage would clearly suffer and stagnate. Therefore how much more should we carve out time alone with God, if we don’t want our relationship with God to suffer and stagnate?
Key quotes:
“The noise of the modern world makes us deaf to the voice of God.”
“If you love God the Father and want a living, thriving relationship with him… then you need to carve out time to be alone with him.”
Best for:
- People who feel anxious, overwhelmed, exhausted or spiritually dry
- Anyone who wants a closer relationship with God
- Christians who want to be more like Jesus
- Readers who enjoy very accessible, practical Christian books
BUY IT HERE >>> The Ruthless Elimination Of Hurry
The Solitude Practice – John Mark Comer & Practicing the Way
While The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry is good at explaining the problem and showing how the twin disciplines of silence and solitude are part of the solution. It doesn’t go deep into the “how”.
That’s where The Solitude Practice comes in.
The Solitude Practice is a four-session resource from John Mark Comer and the Practicing the Way team, designed to help you actually put the twin disciplines of silence and solitude into practice.
The resource is built around four sessions:
- The Quiet Place (AKA The Eremos)
- Encounter with Our Self
- Encounter with Our Enemy
- Encounter with Our God
The companion guide is designed to be used alongside four freely available video sessions and includes spiritual exercises, reflection questions and practical resources.
I particularly like the practical emphasis.
Rather than simply telling you that silence and solitude is important, it helps you think through how you could incorporate this practice into your daily and weekly rhythms – with practical exercises that encourage you to put this discipline into practice.
The four-session structure also makes this a great resource to work through with a small group.
Key quotes:
“In the digital age, it is now possible to go your entire life without ever truly being alone with God.”
“Solitude is not an easy path, but it is the ancient path – the Jesus path – to a strong, deep, joyful, vibrant life with God.”
Best for:
- Christians who want a practical, step-by-step guide to practising solitude
- Small groups wanting a course on solitude to do together
- People who prefer video alongside reading
- Anyone who wants solitude to become a regular part of their every day lives
GET THE FREE COURSE >>> The Solitude Practice Course
BUY THE GUIDE >>> The Solitude Practice Guide
Invitation to Solitude and Silence – Ruth Hayley Barton
If the first two resources on this list have whetted your appetite for more, this is the book for you.
This book will take you much deeper into the practice of silence and solitude, and as a result, much deeper in your relationship with God.
Barton uses Elijah’s story in 1 Kings 19 as the basis for this whole book. She uses this passage of Scripture to show why spending time alone with God in silence and solitude is important, how to do it and what will happen when you do.
She highlights that this discipline is one of the most challenging and least practiced disciplines, but one of the most needed – quoting Henri Nouwen’s stark warning that:
“Without solitude it is virtually impossible to live a spiritual life.”
This book is immensely practical, giving plenty of tips and advice on how to practice this discipline, as well as practical exercises at the end of each chapter. It is also wonderful honest about her own experiences of practising these disciplines: the good, the bad and the ugly!
She is keep to point out that it is not about success or failure – it’s about showing up and letting God do the work. She is also brutally honest that it won’t be easy and highlights all the hard things you are likely to experience as you put this discipline into practice: fear, boredom, resistance, emptiness, dying to self – even falling asleep!
However, she is also very clear that all these difficult things are more than worth it for the huge benefits that faithfully practising these ancient disciplines will give us, namely: rest for our weary souls, a deeper relationship with God, a better understanding of ourselves, an ability to hear his voice more clearly and receive guidance from God, and a clearer perspective on how things really are. It will also cure us of our addiction to always wanting to be in control.
But she also highlights that this is not a quick fix. Getting these benefits, takes time and discipline – a lot of both!
Finally, like all the authors on this list, she is keen to point out that we are not supposed to STAY in silence and solitude all the time – we are supposed to come back and be in community – but that the discipline of silence and solitude is necessary for us to be who God wants us to be and live as God wants us to live in the rest of life.
Key quotes:
“We cannot escape the fact that willingness to walk into the empty places is a precursor to finding God.”
“The fruit of our waiting and willingness in that silence, ironically, becomes one of the fullest experiences of the spiritual life.”
Best for:
- People who want to go deeper in their understanding of this discipline
- Christians who want clear guidance on HOW to practise this discipline
- Anyone who wants a fuller, richer, deeper spiritual life
- Readers who enjoy honest, “warts and all” books with lots of examples from the authors life: the good, the bad and the ugly!
BUY IT HERE >>> Invitation to Solitude and Silence
The Way Of The Heart – Henri Nouwen
This list would not be complete without this book. Almost every contemporary book on silence and solitude quotes Henri Nouwen… and this book in particular!
First published in 1981, this book addresses a problem that has only become worse since then: that of the busyness, noise, anxiety and overwhelm that is experienced by Christians in our chaotic, fast-paced, noisy modern world.
Nouwen argues that the solution to this problem is to be found in the ancient wisdom of the “Desert Fathers” and “Desert Mothers” of the 4th and 5th century. These Desert Fathers and Mothers were Christians who chose to flee into the Egyptian desert to escape the temptation of conforming to the world.
The entire book is structured around their three foundational spiritual disciplines of:
“Flee, be silent and pray.”
The first section of the book looks at solitude (AKA “flee”). Nouwen is very clear about the aim of solitude: to meet with God and be with him alone. We must therefore find a place and set apart time in our daily lives to be with God alone. He is also is very honest about how countercultural and hard entering solitude is. But that it is more than worth it, for solitude is a place of purification and transformation – a place where Christ remodels us in his own image, frees us from the compulsions of this world and gives us a heightened compassion for our neighbour.
The second section of this book looks at silence. As Henri Nouwen says, “silence completes solitude”. He points out how “wordy” our world has become, with a constant barrage of noise from the radio, TV and advertisements (and this book was written BEFORE the great torrent of noise we now have from the internet, our phones, social media, the 24/7 news cycle, podcasts, YouTube and Spotify!) and our desperate need for more silence in our lives. He also encourages us to think carefully about our words when we are not in solitude – are we using our words widely, would we sometimes be better to remain silent that use words?
His final section is on prayer and explains how silence, solitude and prayer are inextricably linked. He is keen to stress that prayer is so much more than talking to God. The Desert Fathers and Mothers had a much more holistic view of prayer and we should too. He encourages us to use fewer words and enjoy just being in the presence of God, create inner stillness and wait in the silence for the voice of God. And as we do, that inner prayer life will spill out into our every day, ordinary life.
Although this book is nearly 50 years old, it is still immensely readable – and even more relevant and important today that it was in the 1980s. In fact, one of the scary things about this book is how much worse the problems that this book seeks to address – the busyness of life, overwhelm, distraction and noise – are now than it was back then.
If the 1980s so badly needed the wisdom contained in this book, how much more do we?
Key quotes:
“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 conversion, the place where the old self dies and the new self is born.”
Best for:
- People who want to go deeper in their understanding of this discipline
- Anyone who wants to be transformed by God and become more Christlike
- Christians who want to be deeply challenged
- Readers who want to trade the frantic noise of the world for a quiet, contemplative lifestyle that restores the soul and readies them for ministry
BUY IT HERE >>> The Way Of The Heart
12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You – Tony Reinke
This book is not about silence and solitude per se.
But it is about one of the biggest enemies of silence and solitude – our smartphones.
Reinke is very clear at from the that this book not anti or pro smartphones, but rather it’s about helping the reader think objectively about their own phone habits and encouraging the reader to ask thoughtful questions about their own phone usage – is it drawing them towards or away from Jesus? And if it is drawing them away from Jesus, what do they need to change?
Reinke highlights 12 ways our phones are changing us – many of the ways are things we may not even have noticed, as they have happened so incrementally and imperceptibly. But the message is clear – our smartphones have changed us, and not usually for the better!
Reinke points out that, in large part due to our phones, we are now addicted to distraction. (The average person, checks their phone once every 4.6 seconds!)
Because of our addiction to our phones and to distraction, we ignore the real people in our lives, we are more angry and less compassionate, we constantly seek approval and validation from other humans (Matthew 6:1 anyone?), we have raging FOMO – which fuels envy, greed and dissatisfaction, and our phones have become full-blown gods in our lives – without us even noticing.
One of the most horrifying chapters of the book is the chapter called “We Lose Our Literacy”. Reinke highlights how in an age of constant distraction, instant gratification and ever-shortening attention spans, its not just reading that’s in decline – the very ABILITY to read is in sharp decline. This is a big problem when one of the most important and essential spiritual disciplines is reading the Bible. Literacy has fallen to such an extent that Christians today are less and less able to read, concentrate on and understand the Bible!
As you read this book, it becomes ever more clear that our obsession with our smartphones and our excessive phone usage means that we are constantly absorbing the values of the world and, as a result, we are becoming more and more worldly as we are internalising and then living out those worldly values. But worse – most Christian don’t even realise this is happening to them.
However, Reinke’s conclusion is well balanced – he doesn’t tell us to all give up our smartphones (though he does suggest that as an option), instead he gives us questions to help us evaluate the effect of our smartphones on our lives, and how necessary they are to us, and invites us to make that decision for ourselves.
He then goes on to give advice on “living smartphone smart”, for those of us who choose not to give up our smartphones completely. There is a list of 12 tips – and all of them are incredibly helpful and wise.
In my opinion, this book should be compulsory for all Christians who own smartphones – and to be honest, even those who don’t!
Key quotes:
“Our phones are addictive, and like addicts, we seek hits immediately in the morning.” (This context of this quote is that 73% of Christians check their smartphones before spending time with God in the morning!)
“The more addicted you become to your phone, the more prone you are to depression and anxiety, and the less able you are to concentrate at work and sleep at night.”
Best for:
- People who want to better understand how their phone is changing them
- Anyone who wants to be the master of and not a slave to their phone
- Christians who want have their eyes opened to how much their phone is influencing them with worldly values
- Readers who want to put God back at the centre of their lives
BUY IT HERE >>> 12 Ways Your Phone Is Changing You
