Retreating for the Purpose of Pursuit

re·treat | The act of withdrawing, as into safety or privacy; retirement; seclusion.

pur·suit | The action of following or pursuing someone or something.

The Difficult Times

de·vo·tion | Spring had come, and it was time to get out and start reducing my waist line so I could stop lying to my wife when I said, “No, my shorts fit perfectly fine, it is just a new fashion trend to keep my shorts unbuttoned.  You’ll see, everyone will be doing it, I am fashion forward!”  I was well on my way to digging myself out of that lie and running on the trails near my home every day.

 

One rainy morning, I had 100 yards left of my run, and I was going to sprint it.  I was huffing like a grizzly bear exercising after being aroused from hibernation, and then it happened.  I stepped on a root and my ankle twisted underneath my body, breaking and displacing my fibula bone.  Although painful, I was proud of myself for only howling like an injured animal, an injured baby animal, instead of breaking into what my wife calls “Wheels Off Joshua”.  “Wheels Off Joshua” comes out when trying to put up a 4 x 12 piece of Sheetrock on my basement ceiling all by myself, and not so pleasant words come out of my mouth (most of you know what I am talking about).  After breaking my ankle, I’ve found myself adding up all the painful things that were in front of me, surgery, doctors poking and prodding me, physical therapy and crawling up the stairs to take a one-legged shower (which is both painful and humiliating). It is hard to retreat with a broken ankle, but it is and will be necessary for me to do so in pursuit of the LORD.

re·treat | Luke 22:39,41 ³⁹ And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him…; ⁴¹ And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed.

pur·suit | In Luke, Jesus retreated for the purpose to commune with His Father; to plead with His Father and request for strength to bear the cup of the world's sins. In the end, it was the LORD’s Will that was done.  However, even the creator retreated to pursue His Father to prepare Himself to live through the painful events that He knew would be coming up to fulfill the Messianic prophecy and God’s Will to fulfill His covenant with all of His creation.

The Next Great Adventure

de·vo·tion | Life was going great.  The kids were manageable, family trips were fun, date nights were easy to come by, communication was easy, and then it happened.  My wife broached the subject one evening, and the conversation kind of went like this.

Laura | “You know, I was thinking, I am not done yet.”

Joshua | [I looked up at her] “Not done with what?”

Laura | [She twirled her fork in the spaghetti noodles] “I want another one.”

Joshua | [I picked up another piece of garlic bread, hoping that would solve her want, but just to clarify I asked] “Want another what?”

Laura | [Verbal Explosion] “I want another baby.”

Joshua | [I was wrong, the garlic toast did not appease her] “Ooooookay!?!?”

So, it started, the next adventure in our lives as we prepared to extend our family with one more member and start over with diapers, sleepless nights, baby sitters that wouldn’t cut it (no more date nights), and communicating in baby talk. I knew, in this new adventure I needed to pursue God as He was pursuing me.  The hardest part was finding the time to retreat for the purpose of pursuit, but man was it important to find that time.

re·treat | Mark 1:35 ³⁵ And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.

pur·suit | Jesus had many adventures in His ministry, but we see an example here of Jesus retreating from the house early in the morning, and pursing His Father in prayer.

The Busy Life

de·vo·tion | I hate the Minnesota State Fair!  Wait, that was not really a Minnesota Nice way of stating my opinion about “The Great Minnesota Get Together”.  Ok, let me try this again. I do not enjoy excessive heat, I do not enjoy excessive amounts of people, and I do not enjoy walking all day long in the aforementioned things.  We also spend all our time herding three kids that want to actually lose themselves and apologizing to every person that we bump into with our stroller, which seems to include everything from our house besides the kitchen sink. 

So, nope, I was right, I hate the Minnesota State Fair. I spend all day there only to find by the time I get home, I am tired, irritable, and bloated from all the food.

re·treat | Luke 5:16 16But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray & Mark 6:46 46And after he had taken leave of them, he went up on the mountain to pray

pur·suit | I imagine as Jesus Christ became more “famous” and the crowds that followed became larger, and the daily grind of walking everywhere in the heat, he experienced a mini-Minnesota State Fair episode, which at times probably left him tired, irritable, and...bloated?  Well, probably not bloated, but the daily grind of his ministry, all the people pressing to see the main attraction, and not to mention His disciples continuously saying, “I don’t understand, can you explain that story to me again?”, and Jesus saying, “O faithless generation, how long am I to be with you?  How long am I to bear with you…?”

Although frustrated, tired, and irritable, Jesus knew to retreat from the circumstance and pursue His Father in prayer, because that is where He found peace, comfort and purpose in His crazy daily life.

Are you at a stressful or painful point in your life right now? Do you find yourself at a place where you have a long painful road ahead of you or you are even on that painful road right now? Do you find yourself needing to retreat knowing that a great adventure is waiting for you? Do you find yourself needing to retreat from the Minnesota State Fair-esk daily grind?

• Retreat for the purpose of pursuing the LORD in your stressful and painful life. Let Him enable your strength and humble yourself to allow the LORD to carry you in this hard time 
• Retreat for the purpose of pursuing the LORD today and let Him be your Strong Tower as you continue on your next great adventure. 
• Retreat for the purpose of pursuing the LORD today, and in your daily grind, find peace, comfort and renewed purpose in Him.

prayer | LORD, there are many times that I just want to get away. I want to get away from it all. In those times of seclusion and retreat, I pray LORD that You meet me there. I know that I may not always be cognizant of asking you to be there, but I am asking You now, please be with me. It is in my act of retreating that I realize I need you the most. At a time when my head is clearing, and I am unloading all of the junk from my head, I need to seek You out to help me make it through whatever it is I am going to be stepping back into once I come back from my retreat. LORD, in the times of my retreat, let me not forget to retreat for purpose of pursuing You. Amen

Daily Alone Time with God |

Chapter of the Week | Proverbs 15

Mon·day | Psalm 62:5 ⁵ Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him.

Tues·day | Proverbs 11:25 ²⁵ A generous person will prosper; whoever refreshes others will be refreshed.

Wednes·day | Matthew 11:28 ²⁸ Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Thurs·day | Mark 6:31 ³¹ 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.”

Fri·day | Psalm 55:22 ²² Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.

Me Myself and I

The Desire to be Independent | “Trusting God is depending on Him, whereas trusting in ourselves is acting on our desire to be independent” – Patrick M. Morley The Man in the Mirror
 

scrip·ture | 1 Peter 2:16 ¹⁶ Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

de·vo·tion | That was it, I had it. All the rules, the chores, and don’t get me started on the suppression. I was in second grade, and every night that I came home from school, there would be a stool sitting in the entry way with a sticky note on top of it. The note would lay out the next three hours of my life. Two hours of me complaining about how I had to do everything around the house, and one hour of actually doing chores. One particular day after school, I opened the front door, saw the note, and made the decision that I had enough of it all. I had recently finished the abridged version of The Swiss Family Robinson, and if they could live in the wild on their own, I could live in the wild on my own. From now on it was going to be me, myself, and I.

Unlike the Swiss Family Robinson, I made the decision to strike out on my own and live by my own rules. I stomped up the stairs to my room one step at a time and grabbed my suitcase from underneath my bed. What does a kid need to survive on his own? I had a change of underwear, two pairs of socks, a couple of shirts, the pants I was wearing, and the blanket my grandma had given to me as a baby, I had to stay warm somehow, right? I went downstairs, got my coat, hat, gloves, and boots on and headed out the door. It was time to start living on by my own rules. Where sticky notes would never don my entry way, and I could live off the fruit of the land.

As I started my journey down our quarter mile driveway, I had four football fields to start thinking about what I was doing. Every step I took was filled with thunderbolts of reality. It was January and freezing. As I opened the front door and took my first step, I was hit with a biting wind that stopped my breathing for the briefest of seconds. One hundred yards into my new independent life, I asked myself, what am I going to eat tonight? Two hundred yards into my personal life statement, I asked myself, where am I going to stay tonight? Three hundred yards into my questionable situation, I asked myself, how am I going to get to school? Four hundred yards into the most miserable decision I had made so far in my life, I was an independently wandering wayward son that was freezing, hungry, and wondering how The Swiss Family Robinson made it look so easy. After four hundred yards of independence, I was ready to turn back and live under the structure and influence that had provided and protected me for the first 8 years of my life.

In your four-hundred-yard walk of life, do you feel like God has given you a bunch of sticky notes that have been acting as your fun police, or do you see them as things provided to us as guidance and structure from a god that loves us. In a time of solitude and prayer, ask God about the sticky notes that you are struggling with.

prayer | LORD, this life is hard, but I realize it is I that makes it hard. In my struggle to be the master of my own destiny, I have forgotten that the guidance and structure You have provided to us was given in love and mercy. I am reminded that it is in Your fatherly love for us, this structure and guidance is meant to diminish the burden that we feel by trying to live both in and of the world. I pray LORD that You work the Spirit in me and help me to lay down my obstinate soul and come back to the protection only You can provide.

Daily Alone Time with God |

Chapter of the Week | Proverbs 14

Mon·day | 1 Samuel 8:6-7 ⁶ But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the Lord. ⁷ And the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.

Tues·day | Philippians 4:19 ¹⁹ And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Wednes·day | Psalm 37:23–24 ²³ The steps of a man are established by the LORD, when he delights in his way; ²⁴ though he fall, he shall not be cast headlong, for the LORD upholds his hand.

Thurs·day | Proverbs 3:5–6 ⁵ Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. ⁶ In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

 

Fri·day | Isaiah 41:13 ¹³ For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.”