Soul Thirst

This past weekend I went on a Soul Thirst retreat. Soul Thirst is a bi-annual retreat sponsored by LBC and organized by my very best friend and mentor (since I was 15) Rick Rhoads. The retreat is held at the Rhoads family cabin near Raystown Lake in central PA. Each Soul Thirst retreat is centered around a specific spiritual discipline or practice with the ultimate goal of spiritual transformation and renewal.

Myself and a good friend from the area made the trek down below state college on Friday afternoon to meet up with Doug Jones our facilitator and the rest of the crew from the Lancaster area. Our weekend was focused on developing an awareness/attentiveness to the presence of God. Woven throughout the weekend were times of singing, stillness, sharing meals together and praying the hours.
I very much enjoyed the community around singing and praying the hours. I also enjoyed our time in scripture as we looked at the gospel accounts of Martha, Mary and Lazarus from Bethany (Luke 10:38-42, John 11:1-46, 12:1-11 respectively). We were eerily mindful of Martha's attitude and actions in the presence of Jesus. We were amazed at Mary's response to Jesus' presence and we were perplexed by Lazarus' wordless presence as - the one loved by Jesus.

Something that cut me deeply... in conviction and amazement was a statement made about Mary. Mary was not concerned with how she could be seen by Jesus. Instead, she was concerned with how she could see Jesus. It was a big difference between her awareness and Martha's awareness of being in the presence of Jesus.

I was challenged this past weekend... with my awareness of being in the presence of Jesus. I was also challenged with an understanding of myself. Without losing sight of Jesus, I must recognize that knowing myself also leads to knowing Him. If I live moment by moment as a false self... then I will not be present enough to be in His presence. My false self builds on security, survival, affection, esteem, power and control from myself or others. My true self is built on humility, meekness, obedience and an identity in Jesus which is built upon the truth of scripture and a rule of life (spiritual discipline and practice).

I was also challenged by our times of stillness and intentional awareness. Even with some struggle and distraction I was pleasantly surprised that entering into times of stillness or praying the hours were much easier than on previous retreats. It's like dropping a stone into a glass bowl filled with water. The water ripples and waves for longer than you would think... before it stops and becomes perfectly still. This past weekend I found myself becoming still more quickly with less interruptions in between.

It was a good weekend of worship - singing to God, sharing meals, praying, reading, resting (literally... we had a scheduled nap time on Saturday), sitting in silence, digesting God's Word, telling old ministry stories and hanging out with a bunch of guys in the woods.