B1 Winter Retreat – A Retrospective

The B1 Winter Retreat has come and gone and it didn’t disappoint.  I’m not sure what could’ve been better than a weekend devoted to lifting praise and prayer to the One that so richly blesses each of us beyond our wildest imaginations.

Retreat background for those who couldn’t make it: The weekend focused on the book of James which digs into our human behavior and confronts our misbehavior, so we may outwardly demonstrate Christ-like behavior.  It’s our faith allowing Christ to transform us “From the Inside Out”!

There have been points in my life when repeatedly bottling up how I felt and living in ways that are contrary to my beliefs caught up to me.  Matthew 6:24 says “No one can serve two masters.  Either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.”  The more I leaned on myself to navigate my life, the more that other “masters” were allowed in.  The world had gotten to me and I found myself feeling callous and apathetic towards things in my life that didn’t deserve it.

I was looking forward to the retreat because I knew it was needed.  I knew that my heart needed to be softened and my life needed to be re-aligned and full control given back to the One who actually knows what he is doing.  Spending an entire weekend with friends up to my eyeballs in the book of James was the perfect remedy.  It changed my perspective.  Instead of me beating myself up for my many shortcomings, James 1:2 says “Consider it pure joy, my brothers whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.”

I had the honor of helping some talented folks plan the retreat.  We thought it would be a exciting experiment to have someone in our class lead every facet of the retreat, but we didn’t know how that would turn out.

Within the first couple of hours, I knew this retreat would be different.  We leaned on each other to lead and focused our efforts on becoming one with God.  It was powerful.

Saturday was spent in small groups, big groups, individually … playing … eating … bonfire-ing (you like that?).  The evening culminated with a prayer service that I will never forget.  Everyone wrote a prayer of praise on one card and a prayer request on another.  I so commonly ask, ask, ask that I forget to praise praise praise.  As the praise cards were being read, I was smiling … we serve such an amazing God.  Praises for healing, jobs, thanks giving … on and on it went.  It was hard not to smile.  The requests on each card were so honest and heart felt – I found myself in tears.  Personal and family concerns and issues – the things I had been avoiding – were staring me right in the face.  Lifting them up in prayer made me feel like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders.  My heart had been softened – my eyes re-opened – my vigor to serve the Lord, our class and beyond was back to full strength.

The weekend re-filled my spiritual tank – something that had been missing and I thank God and each of you who went on the retreat for making this all possible.

Marvin