A Quiet Place with God

A sentence towards the end of the Gospel reading jumped out at me: “At daybreak, Jesus left and went to a deserted place.” This sentence appears often throughout the Gospels, often accompanied at the end by the words “to pray.” Notice that Jesus went to a deserted place to pray- not to the Temple, not to a holy shrine, but out in the quiet of nature. I’m thinking He simply wanted to spend time with His Abba, Daddy. In my imagination I can see Him talking to Abba about His day and reflecting on it, kinda like an early version of the Ignatian Examen. I can see Him saying, “Abba, why does Peter always have to act like he knows everything?” or, “Abba, these Pharisees really wear me down sometimes with their persistent badgering.” It seemed He often used these quiet places to connect, to re-energize, refresh, renew, reinvigorate for His mission. He seemed to go to a “quiet place” quite often in the Gospels. This may very well be a positive pattern for us to consider taking. Prayer is really hard sometimes. We have tasks to attend to, people to take care of, and oh my heavens our cell phones.

Below is a brief snippet from Savannah Guthrie's book published in 2024, Mostly What God Does, that speaks to this difficulty in finding a quiet space to pray:

“I’m doing the meditation on the app again, Lectio Divina. The narrator reads a portion of Scripture three times, interspersed with long periods of silence. After the final reading the voice directs the listener: ‘Now, let go of any effort, just rest with God.’

I try. I really do. Rest, rest, rest. This is me, resting. I am resting with God.

I need to hurry up and rest and get on with my day.

Rest already!

I attempt to create a visual. What would it be like to rest with God? How to imagine resting with God? It is a struggle. Even in my mind, I can’t find a comfortable spot. I try lying down on a blanket on a grassy field, looking up, looking at the blue sky above. I place God next to me, facing up too. Maybe he is holding my hand?

No. Scratch that. I am sitting upright, in a chair, but a comfy one that reclines, or maybe it’s a couch, and he is sitting next to me. We are shoulder to shoulder, arms at our sides, our pinkies touching. I sit with it for a minute. Me and God. It feels awkward. Like a bad first date. It doesn’t feel relaxing or comforting.

Rest with God; just rest with God.

I am not resting.

Suddenly it comes to me, just be here and now, and let God do the rest.

Let GOD do the rest.

Let God DO the rest.

Suddenly I see.

I finally see.”

What if we could find a place where our souls feel at peace, and if we are already doing that, we know the serenity in our souls that is the fruit of such prayer. Finding a quiet place, with no props, no books, just sitting and talking to the Lord about whatever is in your heart and on your mind, or just be still and listen. It may take practice, but what a difference you notice. If you give it to the Lord, sometimes these quiet places pop up unexpectedly. When I was helping my daughter Erin move into Vanderslice for her sophomore year at BC, I discovered an incredibly lovely quiet place: Linden Lane. Perhaps because it was move-in time, it was completely isolated. The lovely tree-lined street with its inviting benches and a view of the towering Gasson Hall was a place where I felt so connected to the Lord, I journaled some thoughts I shared with Him that I keep with me to this day.

The other thing that jumped out at me was Jesus essentially telling the crowd “No, I have other places to be” when they begged Him to stay. This is not His typical pattern; He never denied His presence to anyone, and He had plenty of time to attend to the other towns, but I’m thinking there’s something more going on here. I think that along with going to a quiet place, Jesus is teaching us the importance of self-care, and sometimes that means saying “no”. The first being God entrusts to your care is YOU; it is the first love He asks of you, and for many of us, it is the one love we stubbornly refuse to give until our dying breath. Even St. Francis of Assisi, on his deathbed, when his attendant asked him if he had any regrets, Francis said, “Yes- I wish I would have taken better care of Brother Ass.” He often referred to his physical being as Brother Ass. Self-love is not self-indulgence; it is taking care of that being entrusted to you from the beginning. Jesus once mentioned a Scripture passage of “Love your neighbor as yourself”; notice at the Last Supper, Jesus changed that to a new commandment: “Love one another as I have loved YOU”, perhaps because some of us don’t do such a good job of loving ourselves. Embrace yourself, because God does. Take time to nurture the incredible miracle that is you. Taking some time in a quiet place with the Lord can be a wonderful place to start. 

And may God bless us- everyone. 

Jim Macika is a member of the C21 Center's Pray It Forward community. He offered the above reflection on Wednesday, September 2, 2026. It is shared with his permission. 

Learn more about Pray It Forward here.