Moses used to take the tent and pitch it outside the camp, a good distance from the camp…Whenever Moses entered the tent…the LORD would speak with Moses…Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.” (Exodus 33:7-11 NAS95)
Retreats. Pauses. Slowing. Stilling. Being with. God started me on a pattern of retreats, pauses from normal life and activity, early in my Christian life. Probably when I started, I wanted just to be super spiritual and brag. Please laugh! In my early days, I really didn’t think about transformation, nor would I have confessed wanting to brag about taking retreats.
God had a different idea with leading me to take retreats with Him. Initially, I just filled my time with spiritual activity. I did a lot of verbal praying, tons of reading the Bible. I did very little listening or reflecting.
Listening and reflecting requires a much slower interior than I had in those early days. My mind and heart swirled with the crazy mix of things revolving around my life at the time. My parents’ divorce filled my mind and emotions with chaos and the desire to avoid the anxiety they produced. I wonder what would have happened if I’d just shared that stuff with God rather than told Him what to do about it?
Over repeated retreats, God’s great love engaged me around listening, or at least desiring to do that. Then it moved to noticing, looking at what God might be stirring in my heart. Later, listening, noticing, looking for God took a different shape. He made me aware of stirrings in my heart as a part of my conversation with Him.
Slowly I recognized the gentleness of His presence and interaction. I noticed He initiates. I noticed I needed the space and time on retreat. Space to pause and allow my heart to be distilled with God and before God. I started sensing that on retreat, pausing from life as normal, God and I were meeting face to face. Stress, anxiety, strong emotions abated in His presence. I simply related my state of soul. He heard. He received me. He interacted and stilled the currents wreaking havoc on the shores of my soul.
A growing lifestyle began emerging. A sense of withness arose out of retreats, not just on retreats. Pausing on retreats exercised the muscle of my awareness of God’s presence always with me. I learned relational presence from God. He taught me. Retreat pauses allowed His presence to be noticed in my normal life. Interesting.
Retreats. Pauses. Slowing. Stilling. Being with. Face to face with God. A friend.
For Reflection:
“You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah.” (Psalm 32:7 NAS95)
- How often do you make time for a retreat to simply be with God?
- What happens when you make known to God the distillings of your heart and soul?
