The following reflection questions and prayer time are intended to help close a time of spiritual retreat or extended alone time with God. Take a few minutes to prayerfully journal your responses. Feel free to adapt the questions, as helpful. 1. How am I doing and how am I feeling after this time spent with...
Category: Let the Thirsty Come
Engaging Mind and Heart
This activity is a modification of some of the basic meditation activities. The goal of the modifications is to help you intentionally focus on engaging both your mind/thoughts and heart/emotions with a passage of Scripture. Two different format options are given below. Choose one based on your personal preference and also the length of the...
Let the Thirsty Come
Jesus invites us to continually come to him – to abide in him and to walk closely with him. It is through this close, daily, deep engagement with Jesus that we will find real life and real fruitfulness. We have designed the Let the Thirsty Come book and retreat series to give you concrete help...
Part 1: Authentic Prayer
This is Part 1 of our Let the Thirsty Come retreat series, which highlights different aspects of spending extended quality time with God. In this first retreat, we focus especially on the theme of authentic prayer – fully and honestly engaging with God, bringing all of ourselves and all of our lives. The following video...
Be Still and Know
You may find it helpful to read the post Intro to Stillness and Rest before doing this activity for the first time. Stillness before God flows from the restful confidence that he is our Almighty King as well as our present and loving Father. This activity gives a concrete opportunity to foster and practice stillness...
Intro to Stillness and Rest
Silence and stillness before God is hard. It seems that our hearts and our minds naturally resist and push away from this aspect of engagement with God. Most of the other spiritual disciplines we practice are more active in nature, so stillness before God doesn’t seem to fit the mold. And yet, when we read...
Intro to Scripture Meditation
In my own engagement with the Word of God, I generally think of 3 ways of personally looking at Scripture: reading, studying, and meditation. With reading, I think of reading or listening to larger portions of God’s Word – perhaps a chapter, a few chapters, or even an entire book in one sitting. Through a...
Bibliography
Augustine, Saint. Confessions (Sheed & Ward, 1943), accessed May 12, 2023, https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.157225. Bennett, Arthur. The Valley of Vision: a Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions (Banner of Truth, 1975). Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together (Harper & Row, 1954). ———. The Cost of Discipleship (Touchstone,1995). Bernard of Clairvaux, Saint. On Loving God, accessed May 12, 2023, https://www.ccel.org/ccel/bernard/loving_god.toc.html....
When You Have Extra Time
Here are a few ideas if you have extra time. Remember, the goal in your time with God is not to try to “accomplish” a long list of activities. The goal is to abide in Christ, engage whole-heartedly with God in prayer, and meditate on His Word. Praise — Grab a hymnal or songbook, sing...
Being Present
“Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” One of Jesus’ final promises and blessings to His disciples was to be present — to be with them always. Every moment, God is present with us. Yet, it is so easy for us to not live in this reality. Trying to do...