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Retreating… away from the world. Into the arms of God.

There was a semester retreat at my church in Urbana-Champaign, IL this past weekend. I wrote this post during and after the retreat… I basically used all the free time I had to write as much as I could. Now I’m sitting here in bed, trying to filter through the garbage and the blessings… Man, it’s going to take a while…

And just so you know, the majority of this post was written during the retreat. Tenses are going to be wrong all over the place.

The Basic Principles

Seems like a lot of the things I’m hearing from this retreat, from the speaker as well as others, are of the basic principles that all Christians should know by heart. Indeed, it’s extremely frustrating that I can’t just cross off these sins from “the list”, since I realize how much I need to fight myself continually.

Main question of the retreat: “What is God Up To in the Human Heart?”

Answer: God is growing a heart that can respond to Him with faith, hope, and love. In all situations.

It almost seems like as I grow old… er… I feel like more and more, I’m realizing it’s the same sin, over and over and over again. It’s just with a different layer…

A New Book on the Bookshelf of Life

It seems like by the hand of God I was misplaced into a small group with the oldest guys attending the retreat. (Two Josh Kim’s in the church… now that I’m also in “career”, the grouping of non-undergraduates, this only complicates this further.) God’s definitely sovereign, and it looks like He’s using my placement in this old”er” small group as a refreshing new point of view I should adopt. (And thank goodness I’m not in the same small group as Ted Ha, because it looks like that’s where I was supposed to be. Tee hee, I’m kidding.)

Out of the many ways that God’s using this retreat, I feel that God’s emphasizing that indeed, I am no longer an undergrad. I know this statement to be true, but I’m not sure what this really means. Yes, I’m older (hooray for being 22 and not knowing for sure… this is what happens when you don’t celebrate your birthday), but I’m not sure what this change means. I don’t think I ever knew. I feel like I’m going to be learning what it means as the rest of this “semester” unfolds.

Goals for the Retreat

During my first prayer time, I prayed that I would either walk away with one huge lesson or with lots of little lessons. I feel like I’m getting hit by a lot of huge lessons… but I guess I should have expected such from such a giving God.

It’s like… every sermon… I’m left with a desire to just pour out every conviction onto a piece of paper for the next 30 minutes. Instead, I have to go off on what I remember of the sermon, and pray through it for those very 30 minutes. It’s really hard, since I didn’t write my notes down on a piece of paper, but instead went the laptop route.

Two things I shared at the first small group meeting: I wanted to get a clearer vision of what God wanted in my life. Yes, I’ve bored you to death about what’s to come in the next 6 months, so I’m not going to go into that again. Secondly, I shared that I wanted to understand how to deal with and understand and grow from the relational issues in my life.

Physically, those are two different “goals”. However, in reality, these two goals can be summed up with one word: Growth. I just wanted growth, like I’ve been wanting for the past couple of months. Continual, unending, edifying growth.

Older, More Mature Brothers #1

Just as the retreat started, I had a nice chat with Gil. This brother is quickly becoming someone I can trust to talk about lots of issues and to discuss relevant Biblical topics. Here are a couple of things that struck me from our talk:

We talked about ministry. We talked about how ministry is indeed focused towards the people around us, nevertheless, it is also important for ourselves. As we prepare our words and care for others, the positive side effect comes out to be that we’re getting trained to become more effective in His kingdom work.

Yes, but much wisdom is needed. I feel like I’ve been focusing so much on wisdom through my relational issues that I overlooked a very important fact: Not only should I be seeking wisdom for it to become the answer to the issues in life, but that I should be praying to become a person that loves others. A person that is patient, a person that is kind, a person that doesn’t envy, a person that does not boast… you get the point (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

It almost seems like I was looking yet AGAIN for the easy way out. The afternoon sermon on Hope really stressed this point. Looking for the path of least resistance through the guise of making my efforts look divine. What the heck is wrong with this sinful heart?

There is no easy way out. At least, I think that’s what God’s wanting me to see through these relational issues. I just need to sit tight and grab hold of the Word. To continually go back to it, day in and day out, through the sunny skies and the torrential downpours. It’s so sweet that I’m holding on to the right thing.

Which almost makes me worried.

Yet another realization

Christians are called to suffer. Period.

For some reason, after the first message, I asked myself “How much more can I be broken?” I asked it as if there was a definite, quantitative answer that could be understood by numbers: As in, X times more and Y times less or more severe.

I actually should have asked that question in a rhetorical tone, while still knowing very well that the answer was something I wasn’t going to like. I should have quickly answered it with another question: “How many more times can I be put back together again?”

Ah, the positive spin on life… it’s amazing what you can do with that God-filled optimism.

But back to the point: I rea`lized that in the end, we’ll be fully sanctified. We will be put together in the most perfect way. All that questioning “How much more do I have to endure?” will look pointless in light of what we will become in the end.

Amazing. And before that sanctification occurs, who do we look to?

Hebrews 4:14-16

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are - yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

Flippin’ Sweet.

Yet Another Realization #2

A new way of seeing what the purpose of life is: “To have Spiritual Experiences, and to be able to share them.”

I think that’s pretty much self explanatory. Thanks, Gil! Hope I’m not misquoting or misinterpreting you.

Older, More Mature Brothers #2

Danny Kim came down with Joe, a friend from his church back in Chicago. We should have promptly fallen asleep so that we could get our 5 hours in, but nope, I had to pester Danny with issues and questions. Hooray for 4 hours of sleep.

Definitely helpful, including that one phone conversation.

Thanks, bro. I’ll be praying for you, too.

Song as a Spiritual Marker

Dr. Roy King, the speaker, brought this up. One song that definitely struck a chord (Whoa, pun? You’re kidding, right?) is “Now That You’re Near”. I’ve wrote on this before, but it’s not online… because that “get all the blogs together in one place” project isn’t finished yet.

Anyway, that song was the first song I remember singing at my first ever CFC Large Group. I still love that line “Now that you’re near, everything’s different, everything’s different Lord/And I know I’m not the same, my life you’ve changed, and I want to be with you, I want to be with you.” Killer.

When “One Way” came up… I had to sit down for a second. I had to think back to revival with Pastor John Teter. Oh man… I did some insane things during that revival.

Lack of Sleep

I can just write it off, saying that I was able to do it on my own. But heck no. I have no clue how I survived through retreat, but man, God’s hand was definitely over me. I made use of the “nap time” by writing and reading and praying. Thank you, Lord.

Closing

For now… but dude, there’s like so many more little things to share…

Here comes the obligatory tech-related post.