Into the wilderness
The ascetic
Even at the height of his fame, when crowds pressed in from every side and the demands were endless, Jesus kept slipping away. Luke records it almost as a habit: he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed. There was a part of his communion with the Father that needed the empty places — the stripped-down solitude where nothing competes for attention but God.
There are souls built for that wilderness. For them, the crowd is a distraction and noise is an enemy; they meet God most deeply in solitude, silence, and simplicity, away from the clutter and the company. Where others are energized by gathering, the ascetic is renewed by withdrawal, finding in the bare and quiet place a clarity that the busy world drowns out.
If this is your pathway, the world will likely misread you — calling you antisocial, or too intense, or out of step with a culture that fears silence and fills every moment. But the pull toward the empty place is not a flaw to be fixed. It is how your soul was made to find God. The ascetic goes into the wilderness, strips life down to the essentials, and there, in the silence others avoid, hears a voice the noise had been covering.
“But he withdrew himself into the desert, and prayed.”
— Luke, of Jesus — Luke 5:16 (WEB)
If you meet God most deeply in solitude and simplicity, embrace the wilderness as your meeting place — without letting a noisy world shame you out of it.
“Behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably to her.”
Ascetic souls are misread by a culture at war with silence — called antisocial or too intense — and pressured out of the empty places where they actually find God. The interior work is to honor the pull toward solitude and simplicity as Jesus' own pathway, while guarding its shadow, letting withdrawal serve love so the soul returns from the wilderness more tender rather than more aloof.
This week, claim genuine solitude and simplicity: a stretch of silence, a stripped-down space, time alone with God away from the crowd and the noise, and let the wilderness be where you hear the voice the clutter has been covering.
A civilization at war with silence can make the solitary soul feel like a misfit, until the wilderness is filled with noise and lost — or solitude sours into a proud severity that judges others' fuller lives. But Jesus withdrew again and again to be alone with the Father, and a soul renewed in the quiet hears the very voice all that clamor was meant to drown.
We live in a civilization at war with solitude and simplicity — every silence filled with sound, every spare minute monetized, every space cluttered with more. In such a world the ascetic soul, drawn to the bare and quiet place, can feel like a misfit, even a problem to be solved. But Jesus himself kept this pathway, withdrawing again and again to the wilderness to be alone with the Father.
The shadow of this way is real: solitude can curdle into isolation, and simplicity into a proud severity that judges others' fuller lives. The discipline is to let the withdrawal serve love, returning from the wilderness more tender, not more aloof. But the gift is precious and increasingly rare. If your soul is fed in the empty, quiet, stripped-down place, do not let a noisy world shame you out of it. God still allures his own into the wilderness, and speaks tenderly there.
- Has a noisy world shamed me out of the solitude my soul needs?
- Where do I hear God most clearly in silence and simplicity?
- Does my withdrawal make me more tender, or more aloof?
Lord, you withdrew to the wilderness to be with the Father, and you draw me there too. Free me from a world that fears silence. Lead me into the quiet, stripped-down place, speak tenderly to me there, and send me back more loving. Amen.