12 Bible Verses for a Spiritual Retreat

May 7, 2018April 30, 2018Leave a comment

Psalm 23:1-6 NASB
The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
²He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters.
³He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.
⁴Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
⁵You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
⁶Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Psalm 42:1-2 NIV
As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
Psalm 62:5 NIV
Yes, my soul, find rest in God;
my hope comes from him.
Psalm 80:18-19 ESV
Then we shall not turn back from you;
give us life, and we will call upon your name!
Restore us, O Lord God of hosts
Let your face shine, that we may be saved!
Psalm 116:7 NIV
Return to your rest, my soul,
for the Lord has been good to you.
Proverbs 11:25 NIV
A generous person will prosper;
whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.
Song of Solomon 2:10 NKJV
My beloved spoke, and said to me:
“Rise up, my love, my fair one,And come away.
Isaiah 28:12-13 NIV
to whom he said,
    “This is the resting place, let the weary rest”;
and, “This is the place of repose”—
    but they would not listen.
¹³So then, the word of the Lord to them will become:
    Do this, do that,
    a rule for this, a rule for that;
    a little here, a little there—
so that as they go they will fall backward;
    they will be injured and snared and captured.
Jeremiah 31:25 NASB
For I satisfy the weary ones and refresh everyone who languishes.
Hosea 2:14-16 ESV
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her,
    and bring her into the wilderness,
    and speak tenderly to her.
¹⁵And there I will give her her vineyards
    and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.
And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth,
    as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.
Matthew 11:28 NIV
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Mark 6:31 NIV
Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

Taking a Spiritual Retreat When You Can’t Get Away

July 13, 2015July 7, 2015Leave a comment

I’ve always needed to retreat spiritually, to run away for an afternoon or spend a weekend away in quiet.

I’m an introvert and a workaholic. I’ll fill up every available space in my day with to-do list items and then crash from the emotional overload from the noise.

I must get away in order to be healthy: spiritually, emotionally, physically. My sanity and spiritual well-being depend on it.

That was true before I had kids.

Now I have four little people who don’t fully understand the sacredness of “Mommy Time Out” at the kitchen table with my tea and my Bible.

When I sit down, alarms go off all over my house that only children can hear. It’s a secret alert system that lets them know, “Mom is about to sit down. Quick, find something you need!!”

Last Saturday morning, all four of my children needed me for everything and anything nonstop. I probably heard the word “Mom” 200 times in 2 hours, including from one child who thought the best way to get attention was to repetitively say the word, “MOM” over and over and over and over again until it finally floated into my circle of awareness.

Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom, mom.

A incessant drone of need.

Just when I need to retreat the most in life is when it’s hardest to get away.

I’m feeling it this week—the crush, the breathlessness, the emotion that gushes out of me at the slightest bump from life and the unexpected and other’s attempts to heft one more load onto my shoulders.

How exactly do you take a retreat when you can barely slip away for an hour or so after dinner for a break and some quiet (and maybe groceries?)

Let’s be honest. There’s no easy answer here. I’m not going to pretend and push a heavy burden
of “you must get away even when it’s hard” down on your shoulders.

Some of you are single moms or homeschooling moms and I feel so whiny complaining about how hard it is for me when I think of what it costs you to retreat for a few short minutes.

Yet, time away with God is what we crave, what our souls need so that we don’t suffocate and die from spiritual dehydration.

The truth is some of these ideas will work for you and some won’t. Some you can fit in when school is in session if you don’t home-school. Some of them require effort and help from a spouse or a friend.

Here are some ways to take a spiritual retreat without breaking the bank or staying away overnight:

Spend some time in your garden.
Take a walk alone.
Treat yourself to a good book. Sometimes I feel guilty reading for fun. Don’t feel guilty. Enjoy a story for a while.
Read a book slowly. Choose a book to read just one chapter a day. Let it soak in. Think about what the author is saying or just relax into the story.
Discover a new hobby or re-discover an old one: Puzzles, knitting, sewing, crossword puzzles.
Create something. Rejoice in our Creator God as you make something beautiful.
Unplug from social media. Don’t check your email or Facebook after 8 p.m. perhaps or maybe don’t answer messages after 4 and spend the evening resting with your family and enjoying some time off.
Exercise without watching TV.
Take an afternoon field trip: Visit the library, a museum, botanical garden, the beach, or a bookstore for an afternoon, but go by yourself. Sit and read. Walk a little. Journal some, read some, rest a lot.
Slow down with some fast food: Meet up with God for a date, just the two of you. Treat yourself to an ice cream sundae or a cup of coffee. Sit in the corner booth by yourself with your Bible. The only words you say to another human that day might be, “I’ll have one scoop of chocolate, please.”
Take a bubble bath—just be sure to lock the bathroom door so little ones can’t continue to pester you long after they are supposed to be in bed
Early morning cuppa: I’m not one to wake early before my kids. I’m a young mom and sometimes snagging a few more minutes of sleep in the morning is the most spiritual, holy thing I can do. But every so often, an early rise for a quiet time on your back deck before the little ones emerge from their beds is worth it.
Mommy time out: When you simply cannot get away, a Mommy Time Out is worth a try. Set the timer in the kitchen and announce that mommy is unavailable for 15 minutes unless there’s an emergency. This takes training! Everything seems like an emergency to a four-year-old. Keep on trying, redirecting and training until your children understand the sacredness of the Mommy Time Out and then treat them to a game of Candy Land or a special snack when they’ve given you the time you need.

How do you “retreat and refresh?” Do you have any ideas for how to take a spiritual retreat without going away overnight?

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness. Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now! To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Weekend Walk, 06/30/2012: Life in Slow Motion

June 30, 2012Leave a comment

Hiding the Word:

Five puzzles, six books (or more), one game of Memory, word searches, and some tricycle training . . .

That’s what happens when we lose power or Internet at our house. Life slows down. When a daughter appears with board game in hand and a pleading look on her face, I have no excuse to give, no busyness to distract, nothing to prevent me from sitting . . . and playing . . . and resting with my kids

I complain and whine with the best of them about the loss of conveniences and comfort and I’d prefer running water with temperature control and the ability to cook meals and refrigerate food any day of the week.

But a day without email and the telephone . . . well, that’s a welcome vacation sometimes.

So, after an unexpected extreme thunderstorm hit our area last night, I’m thinking about rest and all that it means and I’m choosing a verse to meditate on this week that compels me to be refreshed in Christ.

“Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, ‘Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest'” (Mark 6:31).

In Jesus: The One and Only, Beth Moore notes that “the original word for rest in this verse is anapauo. Pauo means “to cease, give rest.” Guess what ana means? “Again!” We don’t need this kind of rest just once. We need it again and again” (p. 116).

And again . . . and again . . . and again.

Weekend Rerun:

The Holy Act of Doing Dishes

Originally posted on September 2, 2011

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13

A week ago to the day, I was escaping the mundane and the daily to retreat to Women of Faith. Even with the interruption and distraction of a hurricane, I managed to get away for one of the intended two days and it was uplifting, encouraging, and challenging.

I walked away from that trip with some verses and thoughts that I’m deeply weighing, considering and praying through. It’s trite to say that a conference or speaker or book “changed my life.” Yet, it happens all the time. I read a new perspective and alter my behavior. I listen to a speaker and adjust my thinking.

Life-changing events can happen more often than we realize. Shouldn’t we be transforming daily into the image of God’s Son? Life changes don’t necessarily require “bigness.” It’s not just choosing whom to marry or deciding to change careers that qualifies. Instead, it means trimming this, discarding that, washing away this, and adding that so every day we’re making the changes that bring us one step closer to Jesus.

So, I can truly say that the speakers at Women of Faith this year changed my life. And so did being without power for 5-1/2 days following Hurricane Irene. And so has having the power restored last night. I’m different today than I was a week ago.

You see, last Thursday I was longing to escape from the repetitiveness of my everyday—the dishes, the laundry, the sweeping and mopping, the cleaning up and vacuuming and more.

Today, I was thanking God all morning. For what?

For safety in the storm, surely. But also that today I can wash my dishes with running water and a dishwasher. And I scrubbed my counters with a rag dumped in soapy water instead of a Clorox wipe. I vacuumed instead of picking up large pieces of child-debris by hand. Praise God for the chance to vacuum! All morning I have listened to the humming and spinning of the washer and dryer. I’m thankful that I can use these machines to give my family clean clothes.

If only they had a machine to fold the clothes and put them away. But, that’s another story . . . and probably heaven.

I truly believe in the value of spiritual retreating. Christ Himself called His disciples away from the crowds and busyness of their lives to spend time with him alone. Often, Jesus would send His disciples on ahead of Him while He remained to pray alone long into the night.

Sometimes we need to go away, to escape all that distracts us here so we can fix our attention on Him there.

And then the real work begins. Meeting God when we have set aside time for Him is expected. We listen to speakers, we pray, we worship, or maybe we even head for a private retreat into the mountains where we pour out our hearts to Him and then sit in silence as He speaks to us.

We anticipate seeing God in the specifically designated portions of our lives we call “Spiritual” and the times we have set aside as “Holy.”

Then we must return to the daily life in all its mundane activity and we must carry into that everyday behavior all that we learned in the holy moments we had set aside.

Can mopping the floor be spiritual? Can folding clothes be a God-moment? Can doing dishes be part of my quiet time?

If we deny Him a place in the mundane day-to-day life, confining Him instead to a corner of our hearts designated “God stuff,” then we miss Him and what He’s doing in us and through us.

It’s what the prophet Jeremiah wrote: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Not spiritual heart pieces and holy corners, but all that is in our heart searches after God.

Naaman almost missed finding God. He was a big-shot, who commanded the army of the king of Aram. “He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy” (2 Kings 5:1).

Hearing about Elisha the prophet, Naaman traveled to him to receive healing. Elisha didn’t even come out of his house to meet with the big, important army commander. Instead, Elisha sent out a messenger with some simple instructions: “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”

This was so . . . .basic. So unimpressive. So nonspiritual. So, “Naaman went away angry and said, ‘I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy” (2 Kings 5:11).

Naaman wanted a magic show with special effects rather than an order to take seven baths in the Jordan. But, his servants challenged him: “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed!’” (2 Kings 5:13).

A few dips in the Jordan later, Naaman’s leprosy was totally healed. All because he obeyed God in something simple and unimpressive.

If we have our eyes set only on the spectacular, we will miss God’s healing and cleansing work in our everyday lives.

Will I manage to keep this perspective over time? Probably not. I will likely grow weary and burdened with the stresses of daily busyness. I’ll need to retreat again, stepping away from it all to focus solely on God.

But then I’ll come back home where dishes and laundry and homework is what happens here and that, yes even that dailyness, changes my life bit by little bit.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer for www.myfrienddebbie.com and worship leader. Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness. To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

The Holy Act of Doing Dishes

September 2, 20113 Comments

You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
Jeremiah 29:13

You see, last Thursday I was longing to escape from the repetitiveness of my everyday—the dishes, the laundry, the sweeping and mopping, the cleaning up and vacuuming and more.

Today, I was thanking God all morning. For what?