At Home With God

The Sabbatical is over, but the experience of God remains. We were so blessed to spend time away from administration, routine, email, phone, and the obligations of details to deepen our walk with God in solitude, silence, and prayer.

Thankfully there was no time spent detoxing in rehab, resuscitating a marriage, reflecting on a counselor's couch, or under the anesthesia of surgery. However, this was time when a far worse disease threatened me. It is the cancer that's as common as oxygen in our society - busyness. What makes it a far more severe cancer is that my "busyness" took place in the midst of "church busyness." One may be busy as a contractor and feel the need to reconnect to God. So you seek God, pray more, go to church, talk with a minister. One may be "busy" as a pastor and believe they are already connected to God and that relationship with God is fine. At that point, one has become unaware of how the cancer eats away at the soul.

When I realized that I had allowed "to do" lists to replace life with God, I began to make changes. Prayer with God became the focal point of my living and the beginning of my day. I reordered my priorities. I changed my schedule. I even began experimenting with prayer that never ends. God looked kindly upon my changes. I began to feel more at peace and more confident of God's control than I had in some time.

Within a few weeks and months, I was back to my old self. But I knew that I still needed extended time alone with God. The leaders of Singing Oaks gave me precisely what I asked - four weeks away to pray, read, and write. The first week of this time was spent in Comfort, Texas with the Pastor Retreat Network. Donna and I were alone without our kids for six days. We enjoyed the presence of God together and alone. We read a book out loud to each other. We talked. We prayed. We read scripture. We sat and listened to the stillness of nature that is the still small voice of God. It was an amazing experience.

In the second week, we drove to our children who were staying with their grandparents in the Texas hill country near Gonzales. We spent the week outside in the country. I would get up in the mornings while the sky was black and bright only with stars. I would watch as these far away lights slowly were dissolved into the overpowering light of the sun. I would spend hours each morning praying, reading scripture (Psalms & Epistles) and reading good books (Cost of Discipleship, Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing, Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ, Game with Minutes, the Way of the Pilgrim and more). Eventually, I would return back to the house. The third week I spent away from my family. I was alone on a retreat at a retreat center where a spiritual director helped give me guidance for prayer. Then, I went to Oklahoma and spent five days there writing and researching. My dad met me at a cabin in Oklahoma and we were able to talk and read and be together. In the final week, we played nurse to Nathan, who had his tonsils and adenoids removed and ear tubes put in. The whole experience was tremendous, uplifting and most of all put my focus upon God.

Ok, not everyone can get away for so long of a time. Not everyone needs that much prayer and solitude, you say. Well, I did what I thought I needed to do to rediscover God in some very important ways. I have been reminded that God is far too good and far too mysterious to be messing around with us. But Praise to God, God is interested in us. I hope you will take your times away from work. Enter your busyness of your life as His smiling servant. And let each moment be a time of worship of him.