Spiritual Retreat

On the dash of your car, is at least 1 "idiot light". On some cars it is a "check engine light", on others it is a "low oil" warning light. And on all cars, when your gas gets dangerously low, a warning light of some sort comes on and gives you a heads up. The good Lord designed us the same way. We need to daily recharge our spiritual batteries, and if we don't, we begin to run on our reserves. And it doesn't take long before we are in the land of "burn out". If we continue to forge ahead and neglect our spiritual life, eventually we begin to see "warning lights". One of those warning lights is a lack of desire to study God's Word. After being away from it for a while, it just gets easier and easier to ignore. Another warning light is a desensitization to sin. We can walk closer and closer to the darkness that this world offers and you find that it no longer bothers you. A third warning light is a desire to impress people with our appearance of religion than impressing God with our humility, honesty, and love. So, by now you know if your spiritual soul is "dry". So, what do you do about it? I call it, a "Spiritual Retreat". The Bible records Jesus regularly going alone up on a mountain to pray. I will give you some thoughts I have on "Spiritual Retreats": #1. Take a Bible without a lot of study notes in it. You want to hear what God has to say to you.... not what God had to say to someone else. This is about your personal relationship with God. #2. Keep a notebook and pen handy. As you hear God's voice, take notes. Sometimes, that is the difference between simply "reading" God's Word and "studying" God's Word..... jotting down what you learn from His Word. #3. Turn off your cell phone and iPad. Silence distractions. #4. Be alone with God. If you are going to be with God -- then BE with God. #5. No devotional study guides. They may be marvelous but they will draw your attention away from God's voice. "Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10 "Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God." Luke 6:12 "And early in the morning, while it was still dark, He arose and went out and departed to a lonely place, and was praying there." Mark 1:35 "But He Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray." Luke 5:16 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 It would be TRAGIC -- if at the end our my life -- I stood before God and had to say: "God, I was never able to devote just a day to being with You, because there was always something else to do."