Our church vision has 7 core values by which we operate, 2 of those being ‘The Bible: Rejoicing in God’s word’ and ‘Prayer: Enjoying God’s ear’. Since prayer and Bible reading are 2 of God’s principle ‘means of grace’, the Bible encourages Christians to spend regular (daily) time in each. I mean if these are 2 main ways in which God pours out his grace, why wouldn’t we pursue them each day?
Yet I want to encourage us this week to add to our daily quite times something called a ‘spiritual retreat’? A normal retreat is when we take a prolonged time out from our regular work; i.e. a holiday. A spiritual retreat is when we take several hours (2, 4, 6?) to spend with God. Like a holiday, a spiritual retreat is designed to refresh and revitalise us spiritually, which cannot help but have an affect on us physically, mentally and emotionally as well.
For those who would struggle to fill 4-6 hours with the Lord, below are some options that might interest us:
- Read an entire book of the Bible (start small)
- Write a list of God’s attributes (e.g. loving, forgiving), then meditate for 20 mins on one of them (perhaps the most important one).
- Write a list of your sins, then meditate on how the cross has atoned for them all.
- Write a list of what you are thankful to the Lord for.
- Meditate on a Bible passage (e.g. a Psalm) about what it says of God and us.
- Listen to a Christian song and meditate on what it declares about God.
- Pour out to the Lord in prayer your biggest worries, desires, hurts or joys
Please consider trying a spiritual retreat on a day off in the near future. For if an earthly relationship requires quality time, surely we should want the same for our relationship with God.
