The activities and suggestions in this book fall into several categories. Understanding the purpose of each will help you plan and structure your own times alone with God, whether it be one hour or a full day.
Scripture Meditation
Meditation on Scripture is the bread-and-butter of time alone with God. If you add nothing else to your rhythms and pursuit of God, add this. Meditation is distinct from daily reading or study because it emphasizes a longer dwelling on a short passage of Scripture, asking God to speak and mold us by His Word and His Spirit. See the Meditation section for more on this, including a brief study titled What is Meditation, as well as Excepts on Meditation from Christian writers.
Prayer
Prayer is another core area to devote time to and engage more with. Meditation on God’s Word and prayer dovetail with one another as we seek deeper communion with our Father — they compose a two-way communication where we pour out our hearts and minds before God, and He by His Word and Spirit gives of Himself to us. In this book, a big emphasis is learning to fully engage mind and heart with God in prayer.
Preparation, Transition, and Liturgy
You will notice that all of the retreat templates and most of the individual activities give you space to pause, transition, or prepare your heart and mind. This is very intentional. Our pace of life is often anxious, rushed, or distracted, and we need to learn to stop and slow down, much like Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet. Brief times of transition can help us set a different tone to our times with God and help us engage more fully, rather than rushing from one thing to the next. I include liturgies in this category because they often help us to slow down and can help prepare us for time with God. Liturgies are also a key tool for meditation on significant lessons that God is teaching us, as well as a prayer tool.
Silence
One component that we often use for preparation and transition is silence. But it deserves its own discussion here because silence is a retreat component that has the potential to make people feel slightly uncomfortable. For some, the discomfort may simply be because we rarely stop to be silent in our modern world. For others, there may be discomfort because of an association with Buddhist forms of meditation where there is an emphasis on “emptying one’s mind.” So we need to be very clear — the purpose of including silence in a time of retreat is not to empty ourselves or to seek some type of spiritual experience.
Our purpose in spending a few minutes in silence is simply to ready our hearts and our minds to fully engage with the Lord. The idea of silence is not foreign to Scripture — the psalmists challenge us with phrases like “Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him,” “For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him,” and “Be still and know that I am God.” We are not given a prescription for exactly how and when we should be silent before the Lord, but there is obviously a clear place for it as we draw near to God. Our everyday experience will also tell us that if we jump directly from frantically washing the dishes into a time of meditation, we may find our hearts and minds unprepared to really embrace what God is speaking through His Word. Dietrich Bonhoeffer states the purpose of silence very clearly: “We keep silence solely for the sake of the Word… In order to honor and receive it. Silence is nothing else but waiting for God’s Word and coming from God’s Word with a blessing.”
Reflection and Confession
Several activities are more introspective in nature, as we need times to periodically stop and ask ourselves, “How am I really doing?” These times can be very helpful for engaging more deeply in prayer and also walking forward in repentance as God brings sin and broken habits to our attention. A word of caution, however — these can be overdone. If you find yourself spending more time looking inward than time looking to God, things may be out of balance. Similarly, it is good to follow times of reflection and confession with time for meditating on God’s Word, that His truth and love would reign in our hearts and be the last word.
Journaling and Praying/Reading Out Loud
Many people find it helpful in prayer or processing to either write their thoughts and prayers, or to speak them out loud. It’s not uncommon to become easily distracted if everything is only in our heads. This is an area to experiment with and see what helps you the most. I have known many brothers and sisters who initially resisted these type of activities, but afterwards found them surprisingly helpful. Reading Scripture out loud also falls into this category — sometimes it is really helpful to actually speak the words with your voice and hear them with your ears.
Praise
As we see God and His work more clearly, a natural outflow is thanksgiving and praise. Though it is not explicitly a category of activity in this book, I try to include it in personal times of retreat, whether that be through a liturgy of praise, carrying around a couple of favorite songs with me, working my way through a hymnal/songbook, etc.
Reading
I find it very helpful to bring along a devotional book or other books that help me look to the greatness, goodness, and beauty of God. A few books that have been helpful to me include: Abide In Christ by Andrew Murray, The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer, and The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. There are many others that could be mentioned, but I find these books work well for retreat times because each chapter stands alone and they generally encourage a great, beautiful view of God.
Rest and Beauty
While much of your time alone with God may be quiet and include times of silence, that doesn’t mean it needs to have an overly serious or somber mood. Our God is a God of beauty and joy. Taking a walk or just resting in a beautiful place can be really helpful, especially for half- to full-day retreats when you have more time. Even the simple enjoyment of the food God provides is an important part of coming away and rejoicing in our creator and provider.