Preparing for a Rich, Spirit-Filled Retreat
Thank you for joining us this week. We know that your presence represents an investment in time, money, and extra effort. We are grateful. We have been preparing and praying specifically for you. What a gift to know that we are together in a time and place where the Lord already is present, to bless, to teach, and to encourage!
As we begin, we ask you to take some time alone – either in your room or enjoying the grounds of Bon Secours – and use this worksheet to set aside this time, and yourself, for God’s purposes.
Being Present to God
Please open your Bible to Psalm 50. In this psalm, God summons his people to his presence. He calls his people in two groups – first, his faithful covenant people (v. 5); then those who make little or no effort to live faithfully (v. 16). The images of God in this psalm are majestic, and, truth be told, terrifying: read vv. 1-3. The action of God in this psalm is discomforting at best: “that he may judge his people” (vv. 4-5). (Who loves the idea of coming before the judge?)
Yet do not miss the word of invitation to those who seek to live faithfully: “Gather to me my faithful ones” (v.5). It reminds us of the beautiful phrase from Isa 40:11: “He will gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom and gently lead those that are with young.”
God, in his holiness and power, is a consuming fire. In his presence, unresolved sin is a problem. But even acting as judge, his longing and desire is be close to his people. “Gather my people.” Bring them close to me. Then look at what he actually says to us . . .
As he addresses his faithful people in Psalm 50:7-15, he relieves us of religious burdens and turns the focus on relationship. What does he call for? Look at vv. 14-15. God calls his faithful people, the ones seeking him, to
- Gratitude
- Obedience
- Prayer
That’s his heart toward you this week (every week). He wants your heart, your very self, and he gives you three very practical ways to come close.
- Consistently stop, take time to look around, and see the blessings. Look for the good things God has done and is doing, at every moment, any moment, of the day. Express your gratitude directly, vocally when you can. Journal your thanksgivings. Take time with them. “Be ye glad!”
- Obey the Lord in something specific. Read the quote from George MacDonald at the end of this worksheet with John 14:21 in mind. This dear, blunt, Scottish brother nails the practical path of concrete obedience by which we can walk WITH the Lord.
- Pour out all your anxieties and longings and requests. Remember that the passionate invitation to prayer in Philippians 4:6-7 is preceded directly by a simple statement of fact: The Lord is near.
Please take time with this exercise of Psalm 50 now, as you prepare for a great week ahead.
Being Present to One Another
A legitimate translation of Ephesians 1:18-19 is, “having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance consisting in the saints, and that is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe . . .” One of God’s great gifts to us in Christ, one that is wrapped up in the gifts of hope and resurrection power, is the gift of the body of Christ. One another.
Our Anglican tradition assumes the value and blessing of the body of Christ. Prayer, so essential to faith and formation, is common prayer. Prayer in one voice. Worship, likewise central to discipleship and transformation, is common worship, worship as one body. Every week rhythmically reaches a crescendo of re-formation as we come together as one body to partake of the Body of Christ. We enter that eternal worship with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven (from all time, and all places), proclaiming the praises of God.
That climactic experience of weekly, cosmic, transcendent unity in worship is a template for our life together. But bring it back down to today . . .
- Is there anybody here this week that you want to get to know? For whom you already feel called to serve, pray, and care? Write those names down now and pray.
- Are you prepared for the Lord to surprise you with someone he has in mind for your blessing? Are you prepared to be his gift to someone else? Pray about that.
- Your attentive presence and listening ears will open up a wealth of blessing this week. Pray now, and throughout the week, that you will be fully present to people.
Being Present to the Moment
The Gospel proclaims an incredible reality: that the transcendent, eternal Word of God became one of us, inhabiting time, space, flesh, bone, and breath. God has eaten food with us, breathed our air, swum in our waters, felt our atmosphere, laughed around the same kinds of campfires we enjoy, put his arm around our shoulders, invited us all to share the harness of rest and love beside him (Matt 11:28-30).
Jesus solved the problem of how such intimacy could continue past his return to glory by giving us his own first, best gift, his Spirit, as our constant companion. As a result, we can always be in the presence of God. Or, to turn the idea, God is present to us at all times, in every place, in every moment.
Reflect on the well-known poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning at the end of this worksheet.
If God is present in all places and times and moments, then every place and time and moment is holy, and becomes an opportunity to see him at work and to participate with him in the outworking of his purposes. We urge you to read through the seven petitions Moses prays in Psalm 90: 12-17 and make them your own. If you have time, do that now – and do that as a spiritual discipline each day this week.
Psalm 90
12 So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
13 Return, O Lord! How long?
Have pity on your servants!
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.
16 Let your work be shown to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
17 Let the favor[d] of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!
Thanks for taking the time to prepare for this week! We’re excited and prayerful and prepared with you!
The Diocese of Christ our Hope Team
Reflections
“But,” you say, “I do not know how to awake and arise!”
I will tell you. Get up, and do something the Master tells you; so make yourself his disciple at once. Instead of asking yourself whether you believe or not, ask yourself whether you have this day done one thing because he said, Do it, or once abstained because he said, Do not do it. It is simply absurd to say you believe, or even want to believe in him, if you do nothing he tells you. If you can think of nothing he ever said as having an atom of sustained influence on your doing or not doing, you have good ground to consider yourself no disciple of his.
But you can begin at once to be a disciple of the Living One by obeying him in the first thing you can think of in which you are not obeying him. We are called to obey him in everything, and so we must begin somewhere. Let it be at once, and in the very next thing that lies at the door of our conscience! Oh fools and slow of heart, if you think of nothing but Christ but do not set yourselves to do his words, you build your houses on the sand.
From Creation in Christ, by George MacDonald
Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning