The Secret of Retreats

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othing equals or replaces a daily, consistent secret life with God. However, prayer retreats can be highly sig- nificant in our spiritual journey to augment and comple-

ment our daily disciplines.

Here are just a few of the ways I have found personal prayer retreats to serve me:

• They intensify and accelerate my pursuit of God.

• They refresh and renew my weary spirit.

• They sharpen my responsiveness to receive revelation from God.

• They have been times of receiving divine guidance for specific situations.

• God has honored them by revealing hidden things.

• They have brought clarity into God’s ways and works.

• When I have felt “stuck” spiritually, retreats have helped me to cross new thresholds in God.

I am a great advocate of prayer retreats, and in this short chapter I will do my utmost to convince you of the strategic place retreats can hold in moving us forward in grace. My aim is not

Secrets of the Secret Place

only to convince you, but to motivate you to fit them into your calendar.

A friend of mine, Kelly Jenness, has the practice of schedul- ing a prayer retreat once a year. He usually reserves a room at a Christian retreat facility or a hotel, and tries to time it in such a way that he can spend three full days alone with God. Either he selects a long holiday weekend, or he takes a Friday off from his secular job in order to lengthen the weekend. These retreats have become so fruitful in his walk with God that he is completely sold on them. I have watched many other Christians behold his consecration, admire the fruit in his life, but never become so convinced of the significance of his retreats as to adopt the practice themselves. This leaves me sad and not just a little perplexed.

Effective retreats will wisely include four elements: solitude, no entertainment, fasting, and the Gospels.

• Solitude: Group retreats are useful in their own way, but I am talking about something totally different. Get alone. The quieter the better. Get far away from the everyday demands of life. Shut yourself into your room, except for a daily outdoor walk by yourself. At most, one phone call a day. Face the loneliness head-on. You will realize how social interaction has anesthetized your awareness of God. The violent separation from all distractions is vital to maximizing your retreat time.

• No entertainment: This means no TV, videos, radio, newspapers, computer games, magazines, etc. Part of the intensity of the retreat will derive from your refusal to numb the boredom of being with no one else or nothing else but God. You will eventually move past the boredom threshold, but initially the boredom will serve to reveal your true heart to yourself.

• Fasting: Fasting has the dual benefit of freeing you from the distraction of food preparation and consumption, and intensifying your spiritual pursuit by means of the grace released through self-denial. The more austere your fast, the greater the benefit. A water-only fast is more intense

The Secret of Retreats

than a juice-only fast. On personal retreats, I typically go on a water-only fast, with the exception of receiving the Lord’s Supper once a day. (Tip: Prepare wisely by weaning yourself of caffeine before the retreat begins; pack some Tylenol just in case.)

• The Gospels: Let your retreat be filled with meditations in a wide variety of Scriptures, but by all means include and emphasize large portions of readings in the Gospels. Read the red. Let Jesus Himself hold the central place of your heart during these precious moments. By all means bring a means of journaling because the Lord is about to download into your heart at a rate you haven’t known in a long time.

You will probably be amazed at how God will honor your commitment to carve a three-day retreat into your busy schedule, especially if it includes the above four elements. To pastors and leaders who enjoy the privilege of having their full-time employ- ment in the work of God, however, I am recommending a step further. By all means, start with a three-day retreat. But work your way up to even more. I would highly commend a seven-day retreat, then a ten or twelve-day retreat. And for some, even more. Here’s why.

Chances are that the first one or two days of your retreat will be filled with above-average quantities of sleep. That’s okay, you’ll need the sleep to be renewed and to clear the cobwebs. By the end of the third day, it’s common to feel like, “I’m just now starting to gain some spiritual momentum.” And you’re right. I’ve discovered that the real momentum doesn’t kick in until the fifth or sixth day. So for those who have the ability to devote larger chunks of time to an annual retreat, I would strongly urge you to experiment with seven or more days in solitude with God.

I am saddened with the awareness that most of you reading this will not believe these words enough to actually do them. But I am writing for those who have ears to hear. If you can receive it, I am truthfully pointing you to one of the greatest secrets of the secret place. Your secret life can be ignited into new levels

Secrets of the Secret Place

with God through the strategic employment of prayer and fasting retreats at planned intervals throughout the journey.

Fasting retreats have made the difference in my spiritual survival. That’s why I’m so passionate about this. I stumbled onto this means of grace in an unexpected way, and now I’d like to “sell” all my brothers and sisters on their effectual potential.

Never done it before? That’s okay. Just jump into the waters. You have an awesome teacher, the Holy Spirit, Who is with you. He will guide you into all truth. You don’t need any man to teach you; the Spirit Himself will teach you and guide you into the kind of pursuit that fits perfectly for you. Grab your annual calendar, and plan it right now in this upcoming year’s schedule.

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Дата добавления: 2015-10-23