In April we did a Silent Retreat. It was by invitation to our YL Leaders. Some decided they wanted to participate - that was good...I knew when it was prompted upon my heart that not all our leaders would do this but a few would be interested and perhaps they would be given a platform to have an encounter with God they might not forget. My hope: to give whomever was here ( we did the retreat at my house) some space and time to be alone with the Father.
Silence. No words. No outward communication. Words - via prayer and journal entries....alone time with the Lord. It was our night to be alone with the Lord, alone from one another, and a night to take all the time we needed to walk, talk, write, listen, sleep, read, or whatever we felt to worship and honor and BE WITH the Lord. A silent retreat can be pretty intimidating. For those that showed up -it was an invitation into deeper intimacy than they'd experienced with the Living God. For me - an opportunity to serve in a capacity that I have longed to do for some time now. It was beautiful.
After a couple hours of initial silence, we came together for dinner with some worship (instrumental) music in the background and a meal that was wonderful - it was steak, corn, baked potatoes, chicken, salad, and sweet tea. I'm telling you - this was a meal that the Lord showed up! We ate like champions...in silence and worship.
After dinner, we took some down time....then it was out to the fire pit in the back yard. We worshipped in a unique manner. We prayed. We talked with the Lord openly. We were each handed a log to cast into the fire -it could represent something in our lives that was in need of kindling the flame....or it could be something that needed burned, forgotten, sent to Hell - either we chose...either would happen - this was our prayer. We experienced both - things needing ignited further by God and things needing to be burned with the finality of separation. It was truly powerful.
At the end of the night....dessert. Not all ate..but, it was good....a reminder of our sweet time with Jesus and time alone in silence and solitude. The next a.m. we had a breakfast together in silence....then we broke our silence and discussed what the Lord had done in our lives.
There is no substitute for time alone with the Lord, period.
We will be doing this again - mark it down.
.....a privilege to serve Jesus in a manner that spoke volumes to my heart and did wonders from Him in the lives of a few YL Leaders in Loudon County.
His Peace,
-ao
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