My Personal Retreat

I wrote about this last week, but I am on a personal retreat.  I’m located at a secure, undisclosed location.  I’m not at Dick Cheney’s hideout.  Actually as I’m writing this post pre-retreat, I’m not sure where the location of this cabin is.  I have to get directions.  I know it’s a secure place because I asked Joe if his cabin was they type of place you see in horror movies.  He said no and that I would probably have good wireless connection.  I hope to be a little more isolate to avoid the temptation of checking on the outside world.

This is my daily schedule for the  retreat.

• Spend time with God in the Word, prayer and worship.
• Learn wisdom from great leaders.
• Export my dreams, passions and ideas to paper and see if any of these connect.

I’m sure you have all heard how important it is to write out goals and ideas.  We’ve all been encouraged to journal and express ourselves.  As followers of Jesus we are told to seek God and discern His will for our lives.  These are my motivation for this retreat.

We all desire, on some level, to seek answers to these internal and eternal questions.  I can’t say this is my equivalent to “backpacking through Europe” or going to the mountains to “find myself.”  But if answers to these questions, or at least spending time honestly asking these questions is the destination, how will I get there?

Here are 5 steps I’m taking.

1.  The Word of God - I plan to read from the gospels.  I seek God’s heart when I see His heart expressed in the life of Jesus. The gospels are the starting point.  How do you seek God’s heart?

2.  Talk with God – I am not good at prayer.  There.  I said it.  Some of you are naturals at this.  I’m ADD and lose my train of thought.  When I pray with others, I pray for others.  When I pray by myself, things turn really selfish.  I’m going to “strive” in prayer.  Have you ever struggled in prayer?

3.  Learn good things - I am taking four books with me.  Two on leadership.  Two from Biblical or theological perspectives.  This is a time to admit I don’t know everything.  While the authors of these books don’t know everything, they have insights I don’t know, but need to know.  Who are you learning from?

4.  Notecards – I have couple of packs of notecards.  I plan to explain this more in the coming months.  Exporting ideas and thoughts is a great exercise, but will only be helpful if you draw map.  How do you get ideas out of your head and visualize them?

5.  Enjoy creation – One way to prepare our minds for creative action is to slow down and look around.  I will be doing this as much as possible.  When was the last time you slowed down to enjoy your surroundings?

A few questions about this…

•  What is your life’s passion?
• Could you take your dreams and passions and verbalize them?
• Have you ever spent time laying your heart out before God about these things?

One thing you can know, while I’m praying I will be praying for all of you who visit this blog.