My Sunday school class is currently doing a study on Moses, and today we had a good discussion on the concept of personal retreat and rest. Our discussion stemmed from an instance of Moses' dependence on his brother, Aaron, and their companion, Hur, to do something for him that he was too weary to do himself: keep his hands up in the air.
See, Moses was in command of the "rod of God" (Exodus 17:9), and as long as he held it in the air, his tribe, the Israelites, could gain military advantage over their current adversary, the Amalekites. But whenever Moses lowered his hands, the Amalekites gained the advantage. Moses had a lot on him as leader of the Israelites, both physically and emotionally, so it should be no surprise that, somewhere along the way, he would be worn down to the point of not being able to support the God-empowered rod/staff on his own.
Later in this same book of Exodus, Moses takes his tent and relocates it far off from the camp of his people and names it the "tabernacle of meeting" (33:7). Here was his place for face-to-face time with God—a place far off from the hustle and bustle of all the things that could wear him down. I'm no bible scholar, but I like to think that Moses learned that, to be an effective leader and to eventually get the Israelites to their promised land, he very much needed rest and retreat.
The same is true for each of us. One friend in the discussion this morning talked about how he had disciplined himself to rise at 4:00 each morning to have his quiet time to pray and watch the sky turn during this "mystical time." A spiritual retreat can be as simple as that. We don't have to go to some remote location (although it can be wonderful to have the opportunity to do that once in a while). A retreat can be time spent with friends whom you trust completely. It can be an evening to yourself. It can be a good talk with your kid. It can definitely be time consciously spent with God.
But the most important thing about a retreat is that it has to be. It will most likely not happen on its own (but it's not impossible!) because we get ourselves all wrapped up in busy. Work. Raising a family. Technological distractions. And so on.
I invite you to join me in carving out some time in our busy lives for rest and retreat, be it in your man cave, your bathroom, your office, at the crack of dawn, late at night—the place and time are not important. What matters is that we disconnect ourselves from the everyday hassles long enough to count our blessings, give thanks, confess, share with our creator, whatever is on our hearts.
How will you retreat?
No comments:
Post a Comment