“Alone,” but Not Alone

About The Podcast

Timber Cleghorn on Alone: How Extreme Isolation Led to Spiritual Renewal

Survivalist and international aid worker Timber Cleghorn spent three months alone in the Arctic while competing on the History Channel’s reality show Alone. He had to contend with below-freezing temperatures and near-constant darkness, but in that solitude, he was also able to reconnect with nature and with God. In this episode, Timber shares how isolation drew him closer to God, taught him the power of vulnerability, and revealed a deeper purpose beyond Alone‘s $1 million prize.

Show Notes

Timestamps

Discussion

1. Discuss Timber’s statement that “God speaks in silence.” Have you ever experienced God’s silence in your own life? Have you ever seen or felt God at work in a way that didn’t involve noise or human voices? Psalm 46:10

2. Are you the type of person who’s comfortable with quiet and solitude, or do you need some level of activity to feel alive and connected to the world? What’s the longest amount of time you’ve ever spent completely by yourself? Or the longest you think you could go without hearing another human voice? Matthew 11:28-29

3. What kind of emotional response did you have to Timber restating the simple truth of God being the Creator? What did it feel like to think of yourself as one of God’s creations — exciting, inspiring, humbling, frightening? Could re-focusing your sense of identity on being a creation of God help you put aside the aspects of your life or personality that don’t reflect who he made you to be? Genesis 1:1, Ephesians 2:10

4. Can you recall a time when you worked hard to maintain an image of yourself that didn’t align with who you truly are? What did that “other you” look and act like? What was going on in your life that made you feel like you needed to present that false image to the world? What made you finally decide that you couldn’t keep up that false front any longer?

5. How much do you worry about other people “mishandling” your honesty, taking the true and perhaps difficult things you reveal about yourself, and trying to portray them as evidence of your weakness or inadequacy? Has that fear kept you from revealing things you’d otherwise appreciate getting off your chest? Do those anticipated negative reactions hold greater significance in your life than the true identity God has created for you?

6. Talk about Timber’s story of achieving a personal goal by successfully hunting a moose — and then immediately having to scramble to make sure that the fruits of that effort didn’t go to waste. Can you recall a time when God blessed you with something you wanted, only to find that it wasn’t really what you needed in that moment? What do you think God might have been trying to teach you by granting your request?

7. What’s the hardest you’ve ever competed for something—an athletic victory, a job, a prize, someone’s affection — without achieving it? What did it feel like in the moment to fall short? Looking back, did you allow too much of your identity to get wrapped up in that achievement? Are there any ways in which your life has benefited from not getting that thing you were striving for?

Other resources

Memoir of a Wildman by Timber Cleghorn