One thing that I am learning in my walk with God is that it is important to get away from the world, from life, from busyness and to find solitude with God.

As a recently married man, I am beginning to understand the importance of being on your own with someone. Before Megan and I got married, the majority of our time spent together was in a group; a group of friends, or a bible study group or a pub quiz group or something else. Of course, some of the time was spent just the two of us, and those times were important. But at this major life event called marriage, the relationship changed somewhat. Our relationship had evolved into something deeper and more intimate than it had been in the past, and this meant that the way in which we communicated needed to adapt to our new 'status' (for want of a better word). I suddenly realised that I couldn't just invite lots of people over to the house to spend social time with Megan and I after she'd come home from work. Sometimes what we both needed was time alone together.

In solitude with the Father

Just as in marriage, our walk with God requires us to spend time on our own with Him. It's great to spend time with our friends and God, our church and God, our family and God, but sometimes the very thing we need is to be on our own with God. I think the image of marriage is very helpful in a lot of ways in showing how it is vital that we are spending time in solitude with the Father. I don't need to spell out that some of the most encouraging, intimate and relationship-building times within marriage are spent in solitude with each other. They're times when no one else is around to interfere, no one is looking on, no one is disturbing you.

God provides in solitude