IVCF USA has made these retreats a part of its lifeblood. Although the extroverts among us like to call it hanging out with God because silence can be a scary word for those folk sometimes.
The idea behind it, though, remains: spend extended time alone with The Lord. You leave your phone, your iPod, your distractions at home and you get quiet and real before your Father.
I had my first ROS experience at Fall Conference two years ago when I served as an intercessor. I think I also had my second, third, and fourth ROS there too ;)
I decided, after a day of projects like stool painting, chair upholstery, and table assembly that this was what I needed.
Before I started, I sat down at a Starbucks and wrote,
As I prepare for this retreat into God's presence, I think about where I'm at. It's not that I feel terribly dry or frail or far from Him; it's just that I want more. I feel like I'm in a pool that's about five feet deep and my feet are touching the bottom but I could still swim if I wanted, but I want to drown. I want to live submerged.
I went out on the BG trail along Lake Washington and score a bench with a view. I stilled by it and poured out my heart like a stream connects to its basin. And I drank deeply from the fountain of Living Water. Isn't that something? In Lamentations we're urged to pour out our hearts like water before The Lord and then in John, Christ tells us He is the water and invites us to drink from Him and receive life! We give up ourselves to take what He gives us.
I read 3 chapters, slowly, in that worn out, underlined/circled/starred beyond readability, falling into pieces Amplified of mine: Isaiah 53, Hosea 2, and John 16.
Isaiah 53 always brings me to the deepest repentance - the confession of sin, the reason to turn from them.
Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses and distresses) and carried our sorrow and pains [of punishment], yet we [ignorantly] consider Him stricken, smitten and afflicted by God [as if with leprosy]. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole. Verses 4-5
I know it is a bold claim, but Hosea 2 may be the most powerful proclamation of the Gospel in the Old Testament. I'm not saying this because Hosea's my favorite book; I think Hosea is my favorite book because this is true.
For she has not noticed, understood, or realized that it was I [the Lord God] who gave her the grain and the new wine and the fresh oil, and who lavished upon her silver and gold which they used for Baal and made into his image. Verse 8.
What did our parents do? They turned the gifts their Maker gave them into a form of self-worship.
And what did the Father accomplish in Christ?
Therefore, behold, I will allure her and bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak tenderly and to her heart. There I will give her her vineyards and make the valley of Achor [troubling] to be for her a door of hope and expectation. And she shall sing there and respond as in the days of her youth and as at the time when she came up out of the land of Egypt. Verses 14-15
And if we needed another reason for why Jesus came, there's always John 16...
Up to this time you have not asked a [single] thing in My name [as presenting all that I AM]; but now ask and keep on asking and you will receive, so that your joy (goodness, delight) may be full and complete. Verse 24.
And this while reading A Call to Spiritual Reformation by DA Carson, a book that explores prayer in Paul's life.
It made my heart sing all the way home.
What a friend we have in Jesus
All our sin and shame to bear
What a privilege to carry
Everything to Him in prayer
On Christ the solid rock I stand
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand
These are not tears of sadness or pain
These are the tears of one who knows grace
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