One of the themes that has repeated itself continually in my life the past year has been that of rest and solitude. It was what motivated my month-long sabbatical last year, after realizing I had been going on auto-pilot for too long motivated by productivity and hurry. I came to see that the weariness, indifference, anxiety and frustration I was experiencing wasn’t actually what God wanted me to experience. It wasn’t until my sabbatical that I was able to understand that God wanted something different for me. God wanted my wholeness. God wanted me to experience myself as completely loved (John 15:9) and to experience the fullness of life (John 10:10). (Click on image below for a brief video taken during one of my walks and the words God spoke to me).
Taking intentional time to rest, to spend time alone with God and slow down my pace was such a formative experience and one I continue to try to live into in the reality of a full life. A book that has been formational has been Walter Brueggemann’s Sabbath as Resistance. He walks through Scripture to show how obvious it is that God is a God of rest, who wants us to experience a deep relationship with him that brings rest and frees us from a world that demands consumption and productivity.
In Deuteronomy 5, as Moses repeats the commandments God has given, including the commandment to keep the sabbath, he is reminding the people of the slavery he has freed them from, inviting them to live into a new freedom. This new freedom is founded in his love, rooted in the conviction of God’s trust-worthiness and care, and it is not only for our benefit but for the benefit of others. he is inviting them to remember who God is and what God has done for them. He is reminding them of who they are in relation to God. Sabbath then is a time marked by remembering and resting. I need to be reminded of this. I need to be reminded that God loves me for me, not for my productivity. I need disciplines that help me stop, slow down, get quiet and listen for God’s voice in my life.
That is why I’m grateful for the thriving vocationally cohort with other Global Personnel women as we have focused our conversation and studies this year on rest and solitude. We most recently read Invitation to Retreat by Ruth Haley Barton and then thanks to a grant from the Lily Foundation we were able to put what we read into practice. Thirteen of us women, serving on 5 continents, had the absolute blessing of gathering for 4 days and living into a spiritual retreat. To say this was a miracle is an understatement.
I will be forever grateful for the time and space to be with God and be with other women in community. Our mornings were started in silence and I took advantage of the small rural town we were staying in to get out and take walks, and sit on a bench with my Bible and journal. For me, I always find that I encounter God through his creation and being in nature on retreat is important for me.
In the afternoons we broke our silence over lunch and spent time in small groups to process our experience, pray, and encourage one another. In the evenings after a lovingly prepared meal we met for prayer and conversation. In her book, Ruth writes that a retreat is an opportunity to change our pace and to experience different rhythms that allow us to purposefully be with God. (p. 45) That is what I experienced. It was an opportunity to relinquish, surrender those things I often hold onto so tightly or the exhaustion I carry.
I had the privilege of putting together prayer stations that people could use in their quiet time. It was pure joy to see women connecting with God in life-giving ways. One afternoon we had the opportunity to connect with God through art and prayer and it was such a gift. The time to be together with colleagues in ministry (some of whom I met for the first time because we live on different continents) was invaluable. It was soul-nourishing. The ministry that hosted us exists to provide rest and renewal to missionaries and that is exactly what they provided for us. The word that came to me to describe my experience and how I was feeling at the end of our time together was “fullness,” I truly experienced the fullness of God and I felt so full in my body and spirit.
If you have ever considered taking a retreat, I highly recommend you set aside time to do it. My prayer for each of us is that we may model this rest that is rooted in God’s freedom and love. Rest is not a luxury. It’s a necessity for how God created us. It’s in these practices I come to remember that I am rooted in God and can live from that rootedness. If you are looking for more of an idea of where to even start, check out Ruth Haley Barton’s book. Other books that have been helpful to me in this season of learning and practicing retreat, rest, sabbath, solitude are: The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Corner, This Here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley, A Deeply Formed Life by Rich Villodas and When the Soul Listens by Jan Johnson.
