This is the final guest post from Linda Andersen. She is a published Christian author who has written several books including: Interludes; The Too Busy Book; Love Adds the Chocolate; and Irresistible WifeStyles. Her latest book, entitled A Table for Two, is all about discovering spiritual rest and fulfillment through extended time alone with God – a concept known as “retreating”. I am blessed to have Linda as a spiritual mentor and friend. She has opened up her lovely cottage to me many times so that I could have a day of silence alone with God! She will be sharing exerpts from this book with us each week. You can read more of Linda’s posts HERE.
Visiting Retreat Centers When the heart is open and looking, places for retreat “pop” out of nowhere. I was walking in a village, and saw the sign: Retreat House. I checked it out. It was used for groups only. Oh well!!
I visited with a Spiritual Director and discovered she had a small retreat house for individual women in the woods beside her home. It was everything one could ask for: charming, private, clean, comfortable. She asked $50 for 24 hours.
Yet another place “popped up” as I was “in the way”. The Lord led me. A beautifully furnished and equipped cottage had been built for an ageing mother who never used it. Consequently, it was opened to anyone for any purpose and any length of time, cost free. It was a 40-minute drive through the countryside.
Then there was the guest cottage rarely used by the owner. A tiny deck overlooked a gurgling stream full of ducks and ducklings. What a happy view! It was wooded and private, yet entirely safe. It, too, was cost free. I simply called the owner and told her my intent to use it as a place for spiritual retreat and writing. She warmly opened her Hansel and Gretel cottage to me cost free.
There was also my favorite place, which I use today: a retreat center built especially and particularly for personal, spiritual retreating. The retreat rooms are clustered in a quiet area of the building. A cupboard is hospitably stocked with teas, chocolates, and coffees plus popcorn. Two rooms are available for massages. There is a chapel and a simply-designed prayer area. Meals are available plus a retreater’s quiet dining room. The room charge is $35 a day plus $5 each meal. Spiritual counsel is offered from gifted men and women if the retreater so wishes. This is a place fully attuned to the needs of body, soul, and spirit. Places of this nature are available across the nation. Author Timothy Jones has written a guide entitled “A Space For God” detailing all information necessary to finding retreat places, including phone numbers and addresses.
Lastly, there are the odds and ends places I’ve found for mini-retreats over the years: free gifts to anyone and everyone. They are enumerated and expanded upon in my book “Interludes”, but let me name a few to spark creative imagination:
A day-long hike A scenic overlook A library Time on your own porch’ A private boat ride A rose garden A bike ride A cemetery A botanical garden Barnes & Noble coffee shop An hour-long massage A long bubble bath
None of these have the power of a fuller, day-long retreat, yet they have their place in the overall scheme of drawing closer to God so He can draw up a chair and be closer to us. Stumbling, as it were, toward God, we look for places and ways and times where we can “meet with Him”. As we seek, we will find. As we knock, it will be opened. As we ask, it will be given. Until that day, when our eyes behold “that city”, and the place He has prepared for us, (John 14) we retreat. We prepare a place for Him even as He is preparing a place for us. We “make room” at the inn. We pause. We listen. We look. And we find the one who first found us and whose love continually constrains us. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
You can now obtain an ebook version of Linda’s book, A Table for Two HERE. I highly recommend it!
Every Tuesday we will be featuring guest blogger Linda Andersen here on MOMS BY HEART. She is a published Christian author who has written several books including: Interludes; The Too Busy Book; Love Adds the Chocolate; and Irresistible WifeStyles. Her latest book, entitled A Table for Two, is all about discovering spiritual rest and fulfillment through extended time alone with God – a concept known as “retreating”. I am blessed to have Linda as a spiritual mentor and friend. She has opened up her lovely cottage to me many times so that I could have a day of silence alone with God! She will be sharing exerpts from this book with us each week. You can read more of Linda’s posts HERE.
Using Bed & Breakfasts I’ve gone to many Bed & Breakfasts for quiet spiritual retreats, and find them very good at what they do. In fact, they shine!
If you choose a B & B, for 24 hours you will have a lovely room which probably has a view. There, you will be pampered and coddled and left to your own resources. No one will knock on the door and no one will need clean socks. It’s good for body, soul, and spirit when the hours are fully appropriated. All three seem to heave a unified sigh of relief and be able to fully let go of concerns and tiredness. It’s a good place both to “empty” ourselves as well as to “fill”. I usually spend the first part of the day “emptying”. Through prayer, confession, repentance, journaling, and even napping I “exhale”. The remaining hours become a good time of refilling through prayer, scripture, journaling, and just being still. When the time is almost up, I tend to feel like making plans for the days to come. My bed becomes my luxurious office, and a cup of tea or coffee at my side makes this a delightful time to look at life objectively while standing apart from it.
There is a caution to note, however. I’ve found it too easy to be distracted. I want to go out and shop and eat and get diverted in an unprofitable way. When I’ve done this, it has greatly subtracted from the ministry of quietness. I have felt cheated and short changed. And so, for the most part, I determine to remain in my room or on the porch. At times, I may take a walk or sit by a nearby lake. The main thing is to resist getting pulled into settings which clutter my heart. I remind myself that this is a sanctified (set apart) time and place, and can accomplish the most when honored as such.
Often the breakfast can be taken to your room or other private areas if you don’t feel ready for the interruption of being with others just yet. In my own times, I have found it necessary to guard this small cluster of hours as a necessary shelter for the sake of my soul.
Guarding one’s quietness has a surprising and positive effect. For instance, I spend several weeks in Florida during the winter, and am always pleasantly surprised at how much “room” it opens in my heart to “receive” family and friends and activity when I return. I‟m always surprised by the joy I feel and the hospitality inside myself toward others. It is the mysterious ministry of quietness.
Once, on a bad and bickering day, when my children were younger, I drove to a graveyard and just sat there for a short while listening to the wind whorling through the pines. When I came home, I was once again the mother they knew and loved. I was beginning to learn the astonishing power of quietness.
You can now obtain an ebook version of Linda’s book, A Table for Two HERE. I highly recommend it!
Every Tuesday we will be featuring guest blogger Linda Andersen here on MOMS BY HEART. She is a published Christian author who has written several books including: Interludes; The Too Busy Book; Love Adds the Chocolate; and Irresistible WifeStyles. Her latest book, entitled A Table for Two, is all about discovering spiritual rest and fulfillment through extended time alone with God – a concept known as “retreating”. I am blessed to have Linda as a spiritual mentor and friend. She has opened up her lovely cottage to me many times so that I could have a day of silence alone with God! She will be sharing exerpts from this book with us each week. You can read more of Linda’s posts HERE.
The Perspective “Somehow, when I’m doing this (quiet time), I’m no longer carried downstream. It’s more like I’m carried along in a new stream—a freshet emerging from the side of some hill: unsullied water, crystal, pristine. The River of God. I never saw it before…….” Journal Of A Retreat Linda Andersen
When we stand too close to a forest, we only see the trees, and not the grand surround of the place they are set into. We lose something. We become aware of the individual tree, but senseless to its’ larger purpose in composing an entire woods. To garner a feeling and a full sense of any landscape, we must step back and pause.
Now! Now the trees are only part of the composition—a small but necessary detail without which the landscape would be empty.
The same applies to life. Mowing grass, by itself, can seem like a futile, useless act. But when seen as a necessary piece of family life—an act of loving care bestowed on the place where we live, it takes on a different hue.
Most of life is small: small acts of kindness, simple touches of humor, a handshake, an unexpected smile, changing the oil. Small. But not insignificant. The multitude of small acts we all do daily can take on a new importance when we step aside and get a fresh perspective on them. A retreat, of any size and length, makes way for perspective to shimmy into shape. Instead of steamrolling ahead with doing and more doing, we stop long enough to ask “Why”? We sit back and take a deep breath and carve out different aspects of our life to examine and question and often to recalibrate. Seen from a porch swing or a walking path, our life choices dance to a different drummer. We see options we hadn’t taken time to notice. We unearth “back doors” and future possibilities we simply hadn’t noticed. Our forward-moving life had trampled ahead relentlessly, pushed by a thousand invisible forces. Stop was not what we did—not in our vocabulary or our belief system. Pause was a word on the remote. Think was the title of a book. Reflect was plainly out of the question.
But quiet retreating opens space for all these to happen. In order not to stumble over our own lives, we must, eventually, stop. We must pause. And we have to have time to think about and reflect on our decisions, our directions, and our choices. Because life is composed of all these, it is imperative to collect ourselves regularly and ask “Why”?
I often divide the circle of my life in pie-shaped sections, and label them: friendships, spiritual growth, ministry, occupation, family, and so forth. I ask how much of my energy is expended on each one and decide if that should change. I pray as I go, for God’s wisdom and direction to cover my own, flawed sense. I ask Him to reveal where I’m off course, and where I’m anchored when I should be full steam ahead, and vice versa. We talk about the “trees” in my personal forest—the small acts that compose the whole picture.
On retreat time, I ask God to shake the dust out of my thinking and clean off my glasses and put my shoes on the right feet. I can see better on retreat, and my hearing is sharper. God never fails to correct my course through the Word or the still small voice. He rises up as Mighty Counselor and during this time, He becomes my Prince of Peace.
Life presents itself to all of us in blips and sound bites and unfinished short stories. It remains for us to make sacred sense of it all—to review our paths and open ourselves to correction and re-routing if need be. Retreat time does exactly that. It’s our personal red light on an expressway, our stop sign at a crossroads, our oasis in a desert. We step back and see where we’ve come and where we’re going, and why. Retreat time is a gift we give ourselves, our mates, our families, and our friends.
Life is not a load we carry alone, unless we choose to. God longs to be integrated into each decision and choice. He will never leave us, but He won’t intrude where He’s not invited. His searing love always waits.
Any life lived to the brim will include times of detour from the main road. Lives of worth and wisdom have always included times of aloneness where life is sorted out and questioned and understood.
I gather time each morning. Companioned by candlelight and sometimes soft music, and coffee, a journal and a Bible, I meet with the Lord, and feel His imprint on my soul. I meditate on Him, pray to Him, keep still before Him, and become aware of His subtle actions in my heart. I speak my concerns, ask for help, admit sin, voice my pain, and sing. I do not “study” the Bible, but allow it to study me. I drink from the well of it and let it speak. Many believers call it “quiet time” or “devotions”. Whatever the term, it is sacred time where heart and soul rise to meet the living God and the furniture of life is rearranged ever so slightly, day by day, in surprising ways. During the month, I arrange for a day away in a nearby retreat house. Occasionally, I stay overnight. We each know instinctively how much time we need.
Retreat, then. See your world as God sees it and reflects it back to you. Perspective will happen.
You can now obtain an ebook version of Linda’s book, A Table for Two HERE. I highly recommend it!
Every Tuesday we will be featuring guest blogger Linda Andersen here on MOMS BY HEART. She is a published Christian author who has written several books including: Interludes; The Too Busy Book; Love Adds the Chocolate; and Irresistible WifeStyles. Her latest book, entitled A Table for Two, is all about discovering spiritual rest and fulfillment through extended time alone with God – a concept known as “retreating”. I am blessed to have Linda as a spiritual mentor and friend. She has opened up her lovely cottage to me many times so that I could have a day of silence alone with God! She will be sharing exerpts from this book with us each week. You can read more of Linda’s posts HERE.
The Connecting “God…Father…you’ve climbed in the front seat of this car with me even before I arrive at my quiet place. It‟s true isn‟t it? You‟re “with us” wherever we go. Immanuel! If I look to the left or the right, ahead or behind, you‟re there. I no sooner speak your name than you present yourself, ready to give me your undivided, yet omnipresent self.” Journal Of A Retreat Linda Andersen
Connecting to the world around us with its onerous systems is never a problem. Detaching from it is.
For instance, on every hand, in every way, every day, we’re bombarded with advertising. All by itself, that’s enough to make our heads spin.
Then there’s the internet, television, newspapers, magazines, and radio, to influence us: a virtual gang of interlopers conspiring to disturb our peace. We hear information by the carload, without time or energy to process it, and discard the useless from the useful. Oh, we are connected. We know the face and form of our society all too well, and even the names of the rich and famous and the latest American Idol. But for all our information, we’re still thirsty.
It’s suspect, in our society, to be less “connected” than one’s neighbor—to miss a piece of news, whether on purpose or accidentally. And so we try to keep up—to be “connected”. The prize in this game goes to the one who can recall the most facts, not the one who can process and intelligently act on them. Information is the name of the game.
Quiet time, on the other hand, gives us time to sort and sift and pick and choose and focus. And sift we must, because none of us can “hold” the barrage of information available to us. But we can limit the amount we’re exposed to, and save room in our heads for the more important connections: God and His word.
Artist Thomas Kincade, Painter Of Light, and father of four, limits his family’s media exposure in order to give them room to understand and discuss and process what they do hear. His family owns no television because it requires more energy than they are willing to give to control it. He takes one, good, news magazine and no newspapers or other periodicals. His family walks in the village in place of video games. And they play. They are intentional about connection to the things that matter most.
Personal, quiet retreat is all about connecting with God. It’s about emptying ourselves so soul time can happen. It’s a cut-away time saved especially for the lover of our souls, the sent one of God. We’re there to connect—to empty and open and expose and receive and enjoy.
In the garden of our retreat, we’re very present to the God who comes and walks with us—who talks with us—who tells us we are His very own.
We are, of course, always “connected” in that God is perpetually with us through His Holy Spirit. Yes. But on retreat, we take ourselves aside and sit across from Him and lock eyes and spirits. We become childlike and vulnerable, and our soul comes out to play in the sun-washed sanctuary of His presence.
We let go, in quietness. We hang on. We “be still”. We run. We sit. And we stand in worship and praise. We drop our formal “God talk” and dare to get real. The honest movement of our heart builds a bridge toward God, and we find He has already built it more than halfway toward us. We stand on holy ground.
I suppose all we really do to connect with God in quietness is say “yes”. With our tongue and with our heart we say “yes”. Even so come, Lord Jesus.
Connection happens when it’s given room. It’s not contrived or implemented or strategized or forced. When we present ourselves to God, He presents Himself to us in inexplicable ways. Ever the creator, God meets us creatively in ways we can each understand. He even speaks in English! His is the greater share of the work. As always, He initiates by drawing us to pull aside with Him. We simply respond by coming. He takes the lead. We follow.
Retreat connection brings with it certain happenings, as a rule. One is an infusion of fresh joy. Another is release. Usually, we will experience a cleansing and a setting free from strongholds. Peace is a gift of retreat connection. Love explodes where we expect it least. And gratitude rolls in as we sense the manifold workings of God in the well of us.
Connection with people is good and right and natural. But connection with God is primary. Without a God-centered relationship that’s alive and vital, our true connection with people tends to be weak and self centered and shallow.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your might and then your neighbor as yourself. The first makes a pathway to the second. God’s love and presence will spill over to our neighbor. Always and ever we are called to primarily love and be loved by God. Service to others will flow richly and easily from that spring.
Retreat is not selfish. It is selfish not to retreat. Rather it’s a prerequisite for ministering to our frail and sickly world, and caring well for our families. It’s a delicious duty—a delectable responsibility–a daring discipline.
Who ever heard of lovers enjoying each other out of a dusty sense of duty? No. Lovers can’t stay apart because their love is a forward-moving trajectory, leading them to each other. If they say they are in love, but can’t find time for each other, they don’t know love.
If we say we love God, but can find no time to spend with Him, we don’t know the depth of true love. Not yet. Not quite. Not fully. “And this is love, not that we loved Him, but that He loved us, and gave His life for us.” For us. It is enough.
You can now obtain an ebook version of Linda’s book, A Table for Two HERE. I highly recommend it!
Every Tuesday we will be featuring guest blogger Linda Andersen here on MOMS BY HEART. She is a published Christian author who has written several books including: Interludes; The Too Busy Book; Love Adds the Chocolate; and Irresistible WifeStyles. Her latest book, entitled A Table for Two, is all about discovering spiritual rest and fulfillment through extended time alone with God – a concept known as “retreating”. I am blessed to have Linda as a spiritual mentor and friend. She has opened up her lovely cottage to me many times so that I could have a day of silence alone with God! She will be sharing exerpts from this book with us each week. You can read more of Linda’s posts HERE.
The Receiving “The day bubbles up around me and I stand at attention. It’s now that matters: today and this moment. Waves toss, and a gentle breeze speaks quietly through wide swathes of sunshine. Here in these sequestered hours, I decide gladly to open myself to receive.” Journal Of A Retreat Linda Andersen
Direction may appear as I journal and look at my life with all its’ sinuous contours. Joy makes its’ way in to all parts of my day, refurbishing the cobwebby places I’ve been ignoring, and replacing worry.
The love of God has a way of weaving itself into my retreat experience in every way: through scripture, through the still, small voice, through prayer, through nature. God Himself appears in the fabric of the day: softly and surely. There is nowhere He would rather be! He is very present always, and everywhere, yet somehow more present and apparent on quiet retreat.
The ministry of the Holy Spirit comes on strong during retreat. He speaks repentance, restitution, renewal, revival. All these and more begin to stir as He calls us to the deeper walk. He gives us the desire to trust and the ability to obey.
On retreat, we also receive the multifaceted ministry of quietness. If we are uneasy at first, we soon recognize the potent ministry of quietness—the soothing effects it has on us physically, spiritually, emotionally. As we befriend and receive the benefits of quietness we somehow know we will never be quite the same because of it.
Retreat. It can be short, long, or longer. It can be stepping outside under a canopy of stars before retiring. It can be leaning into music and resting in your favorite chair. It can be bathtime, immersed in fragrant bubbles and accompanied by candelight. It can be hours spent at a retreat center where retreating is fostered and understood.
It can be morning time in the pool. There are a myriad of ways to tend to the soul. Insight and perception are sharpened on retreat. Because we’ve removed ourselves from the ordinary, we’re able to stand back from life and behold it as one uninvolved. We gain perspective. We see clearly what we’ve only guessed at. Our observations are clarified and our good intentions strengthened . Things become possible as we gain a sense of enablement and are reminded how great is our God!
We remember in a clearer way because we’ve stepped aside. We’re able to examine our memories and recall more precisely and learn from our past errors, and get excited about moving forward.
Moving through a retreat time, is cleansing and clarifying. Toward the end of a day of hours, I usually receive a fresh inoculation of motivation to reenter my world. I’ve done business with God, and as a result I’m energized and eager to move positively on. I am full. I have come seeking and I have been found by the living God. I have drunk from the streams of living water and tasted of the Bread Of Life. My crooked places are straightened, and my stray pieces put back in place. “He who seeks me shall find me…” So it is written, and so it is.
You can now obtain an ebook version of Linda’s book, A Table for Two HERE. I highly recommend it!
Every Tuesday we will be featuring guest blogger Linda Andersen here on MOMS BY HEART. She is a published Christian author who has written several books including: Interludes; The Too Busy Book; Love Adds the Chocolate; and Irresistible WifeStyles. Her latest book, entitled A Table for Two, is all about discovering spiritual rest and fulfillment through extended time alone with God – a concept known as “retreating”. I am blessed to have Linda as a spiritual mentor and friend. She has opened up her lovely cottage to me many times so that I could have a day of silence alone with God! She will be sharing exerpts from this book with us each week. You can read more of Linda’s posts HERE.
The Emptying
The ways we experience time during our quiet retreats don’t really fall into neat little boxes. One woman wrote just today to tell me she experienced God time in her pool, listening to some birds sing. Yes!!
Each facet of our experiencing overlaps another. As we become quiet, we are “emptying”. As we empty, we become quiet. And yet, for the purposes of this book, we will look at them separately. On a quiet retreat, or even a daily quiet time, we relax and allow soul movement to occur more naturally, releasing ourselves from artificial restraints and guidelines. To empty something presupposes it is full, or nearly so. And so we all are! There is much to empty.
From the moment we awake, we seem filled: with options, demands, responsibilities. Add to that plans, hopes, dreams, wishes, regrets, disappointments, sorrows, and all the other things that fill our heads and rotate in our hearts.
So much is good. So much is necessary. Yet the very perpetualness of our activity-centered lives calls for times of soulful emptying if we are to remain balanced and live out our lives with some semblance of inner and outer fruitfulness.
Often, emptying is what happens first when we quiet ourselves. We‟re full glasses on legs, ready to spill over, dying to empty and start over.
A friend came to my home for a day retreat alone. She brought a large tote bag crammed with handiwork, books, and paraphernalia to “keep busy with”. She entered the house, saw the candle and the light, colorful breakfast laid for her, and heard the faint sound of music. She dropped her bag and began to cry, wondering where the tears came from. She received the quietness into herself and began emptying by praying. Tears bubbled out from somewhere unknown to her, and she allowed them to come. If asked, she would not have known their source. She would have said she was, “Okay”. Yet her non-stop running had taken her past the place where tears needed to spill. They had been pushed aside and run past and bottled up and left to gather dust. She was certain she was find.
“I fully planned to occupy my hands and engage my brain.” she told me. “But when I was bombarded by the power of quietness, something in me broke, and I leaped toward it. “I dropped my cover, and allowed the silence to move deep inside and search me out. And it found the tears and sort of pushed them out. I was so relieved—of something. I was so released to move into this time and allow it to minister to my soul instead of fill every moment with my plan. I prayed and cried my way into the silence, letting go of my concerns until I came to the end of the road.”
“After a while,” she continued, “there was nothing more to say. I had fully exhaled and was ready for the quiet. It seemed like it was pregnant with something. And I was alert for the noise of God. I was finished, and it was finished. And it was His turn. I felt sort of ready in a fuller, rounder way than I had every been. I was used to pouring my wagonload of requests out to God, but never stopped afterward to listen for Him. My soul became deeply engaged with God on this retreat.”
Julie’s experience, though new to her, is a common one among those who stop, look, and listen for God. He helps us empty our cups, washes them out, and then begins to fill them with songs of deliverance and the still small voice, and often with renewed peace and joy. Mighty Counselor! Prince of Peace! He comes easily into our empty places and begins a work He promises to complete. Oh the glory of His presence! “We, your people, give you reverence”.
Emptying includes profound honesty with God. In a way seldom possible with others, we can unveil our deepest thoughts, fears, wishes. We can reveal our wounds, expose our vulnerabilities, uncover our truest selves, look at our fondest dreams. The welcome mat is out! The feast is prepared! The scepter is raised! Holy of Holies, all is received with equal warmth and addressed with equal vigor. We come unclothed in our spirits, and unashamed, without one plea, only to find we are clothed compassionately by God Himself in snow-white garments, purchased by Christ. Oh, the great, great love of Jesus!
Empty makes way for full. As we empty, we are refilled to overflowing with the goodnesses of God. His thoughts become our thoughts, and His ways our ways. His will, slowly, becomes our will. In heaven, as it is on earth.
God helps us empty ourselves in His presence. We’re not on our own even in this. It’s not up to us alone to ferret out our sins and mine our every emotion. No. His Spirit comes fully and easily to our aid, cooperating with our willingness. A human/divine cooperative is at work when we offer ourselves as living sacrifices and become wholly open to His work in us. And strangely, perhaps, this drawing of our souls by itself comes from God. It is part of His surprising work in romancing our hearts. He draws, woos, calls, beckons, and reaches out for us. And, in quietness, we come, oh Lamb of God we come.
You can now obtain an ebook version of Linda’s book, A Table for Two HERE. I highly recommend it!
Every Tuesday we will be featuring guest blogger Linda Andersen here on MOMS BY HEART. She is a published Christian author who has written several books including: Interludes; The Too Busy Book; Love Adds the Chocolate; and Irresistible WifeStyles. Her latest book, entitled A Table for Two, is all about discovering spiritual rest and fulfillment through extended time alone with God – a concept known as “retreating”. I am blessed to have Linda as a spiritual mentor and friend. She has opened up her lovely cottage to me many times so that I could have a day of silence alone with God! She will be sharing exerpts from this book with us each week. You can read more of Linda’s posts HERE.
The Quieting “Sweet, soft summer with its’ kittenish ways. It fills my heart with the knowledge of who is, and who was, and who is to come. For His love is written on the mountain tops. It’s inscribed on the hills. It pulsates in the air.” Journal Of A Retreat Linda Andersen
Generally accepted wisdom tells us it takes about twenty minutes to begin to worship. That’s the usual time given by most churches to complete worship. There is a clear disparity here. That’s why we don’t dare wait for the Lord’s day to “worship”—to enter the Holy of Holies, or our endangered souls may go into starvation mode without our noticing.
We can allow church worship to be the best it can be, but we can’t lean on it to make full provision for the soul. Only time alone with God can fill us to full measure. But how, once we get there, can we quiet the chatter in our heads?
A good place to begin quieting ourselves is with the body. We can control where we seat ourselves or otherwise relax. It helps to sit quietly in a relaxed, upright position: alert—receptive, yet not active or producing.
It helps, as we begin quieting ourselves, to pay attention to how noisy our thoughts are, yet not with anxiety. Simply notice. Begin breathing deeply. It sends relaxation messages throughout your whole body, signaling something different is about to occur. Then, allow yourself time to feel the pulse slowing and the quietness trickling through your body. As you unwind, your thoughts will likely slow down. One man I know lights a stick of balsam incense to remind him of the great outdoors when he can’t get outside.
Because pleasant scents awake pleasant memories, it is good to use them when seeking to quiet ourselves. I often tuck lemon scented cotton squares in the desk drawer or in my Bible, because the citrusy scent is so happily energizing in the morning. Fresh. New. Happy. Good things can happen.
If you have followed thus far, you are moving down the highway from one place to another. Your thoughts still bump and crash, but not as many and not as much. By now, you should begin noticing the “story line” of your thinking. What concerns are noted? What worries are buzzing around? What hopes are emerging? Because our “butterfly” thoughts are not neatly labeled and packaged and arranged, but often run helter skelter, they are elusive. It is helpful to embrace each thought rather than judge it. This is what is. Embrace it, and then hand it off to the Lord.
Talk it over with Him fully and honestly. Then, set it aside in confidence that He will enfold the thought or concern into Himself and begin work on it immediately. In this way, you and I can move from a scatteredness to a more unified body and spirit: one which is fully receptive to the ministrations of God.
A kind of relaxed daydreaming can actually come into play as you relax. It can become a positive link and a pathway to quieting the soul. Most of life requires rapt attention and concentration. Daydreaming, on the other hand, does not. It is a letting go of the need to control and manage, and therefore an excellent exercise for winding down and letting out your sails.
Daydreaming is our thoughts at play. It’s wide open space where we go here and there with no set agenda. It’s where creativity sleeps, and ideas erupt. No agenda is what we need when quieting ourselves. Thoughts, left to themselves drift and become weightless. They still jostle and jump, but they don’t require the same level of energy or concentration. They are airborne and freestyle.
At this point, you will sense a desire to rein in your thoughts somewhat and turn your focus on the living Lord. I often just breathe the name “Jesus” or “Abba” until my thoughts are corralled and my attention is captured and captivated by Him. Now, it’s good to sit in His presence. Don’t be surprised if music rises up inside and calls to be sung. Exclamations of praise may escape. Or you may talk with Him and begin the emptying process. There is no “supposed to”, unless it is to be receptive to the quickenings of the Holy Spirit in your spirit. There is no time frame. All of this can occur in moments, and sometimes it has taken me hours to reach a state of relaxed, receptive quietness (on a day retreat). Our culture conspires against us in this respect. But greater is He that is in us than he who is in the world!
Surely there are excellent reasons for Christ’s admonition to “Be still and know that I am God”. He could have said, “Be busy, and know that I am God.” Or, “Be active..”, or “Be involved..”. But He said “Be still”. He knew us too well. He knew we wouldn’t need urging to be active, and that activity would require strict attention. He called us to slow down, knowing we would need a command, not a suggestion! He reaches out to us just as He did to Adam and Eve in Eden. He wants, desires, craves our fellowship. He moves in our direction, waiting, ever waiting, strumming His fingers, hoping we will downshift long enough to spend time with Him. There is no figuring out why. Who can ever understand the desire of God for us? We are made in His image, to be sure. We are formed in His likeness. But who can fathom a God who wants our company, and sends invitations engraved in gold? We can only bask in the happy truth of it. And say “Amen”. So be it.
You can now obtain an ebook version of Linda’s book, A Table for Two HERE. I highly recommend it!
Every Tuesday we will be featuring guest blogger Linda Andersen here on MOMS BY HEART. She is a published Christian author who has written several books including: Interludes; The Too Busy Book; Love Adds the Chocolate; and Irresistible WifeStyles. Her latest book, entitled A Table for Two, is all about discovering spiritual rest and fulfillment through extended time alone with God – a concept known as “retreating”. I am blessed to have Linda as a spiritual mentor and friend. She has opened up her lovely cottage to me many times so that I could have a day of silence alone with God! She will be sharing exerpts from this book with us each week. You can read more of Linda’s posts HERE.
Using Your Space “My car takes me farther away than radio waves reach. And I’m sequestered on an island of taped music and personal reverie: an almost Herculean effort for a woman of today. Joyful joyful I adore thee! Fill me with the light of day.” Journal Of A Retreat Linda Andersen
Quiet retreating unfolds. Each time is likely to be different. There is really no set pattern of exactly what one is to do or how. According to the needs of the soul the time will unravel and become what we need.
In the beginning of my retreating, I “did” the time in a familiar way. And God came. I began with a brief time of adoration. Not knowing much about adoring God, I quickly moved on to confession. That was easier. I knew what confession was all about: unpacking, unloading, emptying, receiving forgiveness.
Next, I spent a little time in thanksgiving, quickly moving from that into a long period of supplication (asking). It was all so neatly packaged and tidy: ACTS. Adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication. Just as I had been taught. But God was present, and did move in and out and in between my many-splendored plan. He met me where I was.
Next I often divided my life into sections on paper, and talked the sections over with the Lord. Always I would gain some new perspective and move this and that around until my life hung in a better balance. It only took a month for my life to get out of whack! So, I began taking a few hours once a month to retreat and regroup.
Today, about fifteen years later, my retreat times have changed, as they should. All growth brings change. I hardly recognize how it has evolved and shifted. I have just recently begun the journey into what I call “contemplation”. I use the greater share of my time alone in focusing on, contemplating and adoring our living Lord.
So what does that look like? For me, for now, it looks like this: In my daily time with the Lord, I light some candles in my Quiet Room (just a spare bedroom). This helps me focus. As I light the candles, I quietly invite the presence of the Lord into my space. I turn on soft music and sit comfortably, with a cup of coffee. Sometimes I say Psalm 23 aloud or sing the songs which come to mind, or call on the name of the Lord. And I give myself time. I don’t require anything to happen. I sit before Him. I may say the names of God aloud and ponder each one. I look and I listen for the Presence of Christ in me, the hope of glory, and find myself talking with Him the way one lover speaks to another. It is becoming a tryst, this morning time, this sacred space. And I’m reluctant to leave. It is becoming a Holy of Holies where I am invited in, and the pleasure of my company is requested and relished.
On my day-long retreats, I’m beginning to spend the first part of the day doing the same kind of contemplating as I move into quietness and solitude.
Let me hasten to say, this is my journey. It will not be your journey, even though some practices may resemble each other. God is more than able to completely individualize His times with us. Let Him come to you as He will.
Back to my daily time alone with God. After a time of contemplation, I usually journal some prayers and thoughts, feelings, concerns, and I talk to God on paper. Since I am a writer this comes naturally to me. This time feels enfolded into my worship. We are together, after all. Then I usually read the word, (Genesis to Revelation), a bit each day. I read, and stop when I need to meditate on a passage, or ask God about it. I am not studying now.
I am in conversation with God. He speaks. I respond. Most days, an hour and a half is more than enough. There is no holy length of time! Yesterday, a very short time felt like “enough”. On longer times of retreat, each one of these practices seems to occur, only each one is stretched out instead of compacted. On a day away, there is much time—enough time for the soul to unwind and intentionally “waste” time with the Presence.
There are so many ways to approach set-apart spiritual retreat time. And every one is right to the seeking heart. God will design one especially for each one of us. I share only ways that suit me and which I have been led to. These serve my soul. They should not be seen by themselves as a pattern to follow, but only as an example of what God might decide to do. Look at the individual facets of extended retreat time with me:
-Journaling- When we journal, we write the unvarnished, unedited truth on paper. We write in total privacy. We talk on paper. We exhale the good, the bad, the in between. We air the acceptable and the unacceptable thoughts. It is therapy of the finest order. It is also conversation with God. There is no one sitting in judgement of a journal entry. There is no editor to placate, and no readership to cater to. It’s raw, unfiltered, unfettered truth our spirits needs to acknowledge and “sit with”. “Just as I am, without one plea.”
It is not a page or pages of “oughts” and shoulds—a preaching to ourselves, but more a record of what is true about us at the deepest level. When we reread a journal entry, we look in a mirror.
As I journal, I’m talking with God on paper. I ask His opinion, seek His advice, ask for His guidance, and look for His insights. I confess, and I am jubilant in His forgiveness. I revel in His receptive, loving presence. I rest in His unconditional love. Maybe that’s why He is called Mighty Counselor, Prince of Peace in scripture. Because He is, and I find Him more than able to handle anything that concerns me.
Journaling, for me, promotes intimacy with God, and leads into prayerful conversation.
-Prayer- And what is prayer if it isn’t two hearts enfolded into each other: God and I, present to each other, beholding one another in infinite care. It is two becoming one in the mystery of love as I open myself. And He reciprocates by opening Himself to me– by breaking my heart softly with His rapt attention and boundless love. Again, prayer is a holding tank and a cupboard for our cosseted concerns and multiple questions. It is a place we can all honestly admit failure and beg blessing, and sit with our flaws in the “changing room” of Him who never changes.
Prayer is the mountain top reaching into heavenly places—a meeting place for the helper and the helped. Prayers sets the stage for transfiguration where, in some ineffable way, we move from glory into glory. Color is added upon color, as the Artist paints Himself onto our lives. It’s stillness set to celestial music and resounding deeply in our hearts.
I was taught to pray with a list of requests. That’s it. A long, laundry list of requests. I came to God only for what He could give me. But He heard! And He cared! And He answered. But it was kindergarten: a child of God’s first words. I asked with nothing else in mind except receiving. As an adolescent, in prayer and in life, I began to reason and converse and to give back to God in our relationship. As an adult, I learned to put myself last, and others first, and to intercede more than ask for myself. Each kind of prayer was good and acceptable in its’ time and fully received by God. But there was movement. There was change.
God, thankfully, never, ever condemns us for honestly being who we are. But He does work with us to bring us to maturity. We cannot force growth in prayer any more than in life. We can put ourselves in the “environment” of growth, and let it happen, like a flower opening to the sun. We can present ourselves just as we are (and we’re glorious to Him) knowing we are perfectly loved and that He will bring us to new and spacious places in our walk with Him.
Often, we are surprised at the number of words which seem to need to be spoken or written to God when we first begin to pray. It’s all about us and what we have to say.
Then, later, we grow into an awareness of the potency of silence, and the power of simply sitting before Him in quiet adoration. We are emptied and filled up. We are broken and spilled out for love of Jesus. We are ready to meet God in a sanctuary of quietness, and finally, listen. There are good things ahead!
-Contemplation- Not an overused word. Not a well-known concept. Not a commonly understood “discipline” in many of our churches. Often connected with being a little too mystical or mysterious or unfamiliar. Many avoid experiencing God in contemplation simply because it‟s foreign. But is it foreign, really? Or is it as simple as what happens when a mothers leans over the crib of her baby, and contemplates him or her?
Contemplation occurs when we go to the seashore, or the mountains, or in nature. At such times, our spirits “catch their breath” in wonder, love, and praise. We “contemplate” incognito: unrecognized. We see a mountain and see God. We hear ocean waves and experience His Majesty. We love a sunset and love God, sometimes without knowing it. We contemplate when we watch a cloud, or sing a song, or a myriad of other thing. For doesn’t God imbed Himself in all of His creation? Why are we all drawn irresistibly toward water if God is not there? Isn’t all of nature choreographed to draw us to Himself? Isn’t His “main event” walking in the garden of this world with us even as He walked with Adam and Eve? Think on these things.
In extended hours of retreat, we have the time to be still and know, in a primal way, that He is, now and always, God almighty. We have the time to watch and wait and listen for Him. I find it helpful to utter the name of Jesus or Immanuel or any of His other names in order to center my thoughts on Him. And I wait, and I may meditate slowly on a scripture. I often sense a spirit of adoration rising and praise simply escapes my lips, and tears may come. Wet stamp of the soul! I don’t question their source, but just receive their presence as evidence my heart is in moving in transition and transformation.
In contemplative silence, we meet God on a new plane, and often find our spirits moved in uncanny ways. One might call it exercise of the spirit. In one sense, it is no more mysterious than enjoying the company of a mate without exchanging words. Love is exchanged: just in a different way than speaking.
Contemplation does grow and change. From small beginnings, it usually changes, grows large easily, and because of the pure pleasure of it, becomes a “regular” in the quiet times with God. Oh, God speaks in a million ways.
With hungry hearts we come to our quiet times. With tangled motives and unsure steps and wrung out souls. We come not because we must, but because we may! Into the throne room we come to the King: eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God! We lean ourselves toward Him only to find He meets us more than half way. High King of heaven, how majestic is your name in all the earth! And our spirits bow low in adoration, and He extends the scepter to give us audience. “Holy God, Abba Father, that you would deign to meet with such as us! What a mighty God we serve. This, is holy, holy ground.
You can now obtain an ebook version of Linda’s book, A Table for Two HERE. I highly recommend it!
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