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Psalm 22:20:
20Deliver my soul from the sword, my solitary one from the power of the dog.
Psalm 35:17:
17Rescue my soul from their destructions, my solitary one from the young lions.
Solitude is something that has to be reckoned with when you consider the effect it has upon the mind.
This is most evident with a little child, who in solitude becomes afraid and begins to cry. If less striking, yet this impulse to seek or shun solitude marks itself with adults with sufficient clearness, for us to infer from it something about their character.
Some people, whenever possible, escape from their busier surroundings in order to bury themselves in solitude; while others, when left alone, feel oppressed, and only find themselves again in the company of others.
This portrays itself in a threefold way.
The most striking example may be borrowed from the choice that the heart has made at the cross-road of good and evil. In order to do wrong, one hides and conceals oneself. Evil works by night. But when the wrong is done and the conscience is awakened, solitude becomes oppressive and diversion is sought in others' company.
Less striking, yet sufficiently evident is the way the liking for or dislike of solitude shows itself respectively in the more meditative or more active disposition. One lives more within himself, thinks and ponders and feels deeply; another lives in externals, runs and slaves, and likes to make a show of his activities. Even among nations, this difference is apparent. One people lives within doors, another, whenever possible, in the street; a difference for the most part determined by climate and nature.
And in the third place, this seeking or shunning of solitude finds its cause in the consciousness of power or the lack of it. Diffident, awkward, inwardly cowardly natures are almost afraid of company, and draw back with downcast eyes; while he who is clever, energetic and courageous, mingles freely among all sorts of people.
There is more to it than this. Solitude is loved by the man of study; it lures the old man more than one who is in the strength of his years; in feeble health, with weakened nerves, people shrink from too much excitement. These causes, however, are accidental, and are no index of character; but in connection with them it is striking that the Psalmist twice calls his soul "the solitary one;" once in the passion psalm, prophetic of Golgotha (22:20): "Deliver my soul from the sword, my solitary one from the power of the dog;" and again in Psalm 35:17: "Rescue my soul from their destructions, my solitary one from the young lions."
Your soul is—your solitary one.
This expresses its preciousness. To parents that have but one child, this solitary child is more precious than the seven of which another may boast. If this solitary child dies, the generation dies and the lifeline of those parents is cut off.
Applied to the soul, your soul stands apart from your property and your body. However much you are attached to your goods, if they are lost other goods can replace them, and though once your body shall be lowered in the grave, presently you will rise in a glorified body.
But such is not the case with your soul. Your soul is your solitary one. It can not be replaced. If lost, it is lost forever. For this reason, Jesus warns us so solemnly: "Fear not them that can kill the body, but rather fear him who can destroy your soul, yea, I say unto you, Fear him" (Luke 12:4-5).
All loss can be made good except the loss of "your solitary one."
And therefore here the consciousness of your self separates itself from your soul. You, who view yourself, who think about your self, find a busy, active world round about you, and see yourself in a decadent, visible body that grows and flourishes, or is sick and pines away. But you have still something else within you, hidden in your inward being, and that hidden something, that "solitary one" within, is your soul, which you must love, and which at your death you must return to your God in honor and holiness, because from Him, and from Him alone, you received it.
From this comes the sense that the soul within you dwells alone.
Truly, your soul can approach the world and the world can approach your soul.
God endowed you with senses, which, like so many windows, enable you to look out upon the world and communicate with it. God has endowed you with feeling and fellow feeling, whereby, though others may be far away, you can sympathize with them, rejoice with them, and suffer on account of their sorrows. God has endowed you with the gift of speech, whereby your soul can express itself, and the soul of another can speak in your ear. Speech has been committed to writing, and, thanks to this glorious invention, which likewise has been given us of God, your soul can have fellowship with preceding generations, or with contemporaries whom you have never met. And, not least, you have a sense and knowledge of a higher world above, and it is as though angels of God descended upon you and from you ascended again. And best of all, in your heart you have a gate that opens into your soul, through which God can approach your soul, and your soul can go out to God.
But in the face of all this, your soul itself remains distinct from that world, from that nature, from those angels and from God, and in a sense separated. And so, taken by itself, your soul within you is your solitary one, that is something and has something which purely and solely is its own, and remains its own, with respect to which the loneliness within can never be broken.
One of two things here happens.
Either the soul is too lonely, or you yourself have too little knowledge of the soul in its loneliness.
The soul is too lonely within you, when you are bereft of what supported you and gave you companionship. This is the loneliness of sorrow and of forsakenness, which oppresses and makes afraid.
Your soul is disposed to sympathy, to society, to give and win confidence, to be man among men, and to spread wings in spheres of peace and happiness.
And when these do not fall to your portion, when hate repels and slander follows you where love should attract and sympathy refresh you, then shy and shrinking your soul draws back within itself. It can not unburden itself nor express what it feels. Shut up within itself, it pines away in sadness and grief.
Or when the joy of life takes flight, and care makes a heavy heart, and sorrow comes upon sorrow, and the outlook darkens and the star of hope recedes behind ever-thickening clouds—then, in oppressive isolation the soul is thrown back upon itself and pants for air, while Satan sometimes steals in with the suggestion of suicide.
But as the soul can be troubled and oppressed by too great solitude, it can also suffer loss when you do not fully appreciate the significance of its solitariness. This is the common result of a superficial, thoughtless existence that is weaned of all seriousness.
Then the soul is not understood nor honored in its own solitary, independent existence. Then there is the chase after diversion and endless recreation; with never a turning in upon oneself, never the collecting of the soul for the sake of quiet thought, never a seeking after the soul for the soul's own sake, while the soul itself continues always haunted, always a slave to its environment, never coming to rest, inward peace and self-examination.
And so you see people in the world go out in two directions. On one side the wretched and distressed pining away in inner solitariness; on the other side, the laughing, always busy, hurried and self-externalizing crowd, which neither ever seeks solitude nor harbors a thought about its own solitary soul.
Against this giving way too much to solitude, and this not entering far enough into the appreciation of the soul's solitariness, one remedy alone is offered unto us, and that is, the coming into the loneliness of our soul of the fellowship of our God.
In our soul there is a holy of holies, a holy place and an outer court.
The world makes no closer approach to our soul than this outer court. There it remains, and neither observes nor understands anything of the deeper secrets of the soul.
Intimate, spiritual friendship makes a closer approach; a small circle of individuals about us, who understand us better, who see through us more clearly, and thereby are able so much more tenderly to sustain and comfort us, enter the holy place. But even they do not enter the holy of holies. There is always a deep background, where they can not enter in, and where in utter solitude the soul abides.
There is only One Who can enter this holiest and most intimate recess of our soul, and He is God, the Lord, by His Holy Spirit.
And therefore He alone can break the soul's loneliness, and comfort him who is caught in the snares of death, and save the soul of him who diverted himself in the interests and pleasures of the world.
* * * * * * *This devotional classic offers 110 meditations on a single thought from Psalm 73: "As for me, it is good to be near to God." The author states, "The fellowship of being near unto God must become reality ... it must permeate and give color to our feeling, our perceptions, our sensations, our thinking, our imagining, our willing, our acting, our speaking. It must not stand as a foreign factor in our life, but it must be the passion that breathes throughout our whole existence."
The meditations reflect the blending of spiritual vigor with doctrinal loyalty so consistently expressed in the life of Abraham Kuyper. These are devotions with true substance, avoiding the extremes about which Kuyper adds a word of caution: "Stress in creedal confession, without drinking from the Living Fountain, runs dry in barren orthodoxy, just as truly as spiritual emotion, without clearness in confessional standards, makes one sink in the bog of sickly mysticism."
Abraham Kuyper (1837-1920) was a Dutch political leader and Calvinist theologian. Elected to parliament in 1874, he became Prime Minister in 1901 and served in that capacity until 1905. As a theologian, he revived a systematic, orthodox Calvinism. He founded the Free Reformed Church and the Free University of Amsterdam. His other works include Principles of Sacred Theology, Lectures on Calvinism, and The Work of the Holy Spirit
Further information about Abraham Kuyper's life can be seen in the translator's "Biographical Note"; further information about To Be Near Unto God can be found in Abraham Kuyper's "Preface" to that book.
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