Reflections on Winter Retreat

Besides being the opening line to now nearly forgotten number 1 pop song in the 80s (I can’t type that title without hearing Peter Cetera’s voice from the band Chicago), everybody does need time for reflection and listening and encouragement. For 20+ years, Visible Community has pulled away for a few days in the winter to be together, listen to God, play a bit, worship, and reset for the Spring Term. We’ve done it on and off campus, split by gender, all internal speakers, or dynamic guest speakers ministering to the community. We’ve done it in multiple states and locations and we always are blessed when we do really get away. This year we planned to go out of town and really hunker down.

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The Lord (and icy Memphis) had different plans for us.

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With the snow and wintry mix pummeling Memphis last week, we ended up with one solid retreat day and that one at the school building with me as speaker. I loved it. I appreciated the worship music from Visible Worship Collective and thoroughly enjoyed speaking to the students in the room and online (and one online student who drove many hours from Minnesota to be in the room!) about their position in Christ - as a royal priesthood. Submission to the authority of God is one of life’s great lessons, accepting a faith from God is a Christian’s journey, and becoming the royal priest or priestess in God is a fulfillment of the divine calling. We are going to expound on that this term at Visible, championing the truth that our staff and students are called to servant son God in this way, bringing kindness and love to the world, whether with song or work of the hands.

The time we spent just starting to listen to God at the end of my talk was the initiation of something we all need. Daily listening to God the Holy Spirit for direction and application of the Word.

Maybe as winter drags on and springtime lingers in the future, we could all hunker down, curl up, or other useful analogy for sit yourself down, and read, listen, pray, and reflect on the cornucopia of blessing in which we live daily as believers. Becoming more refined in this awareness, we can serve in our churches, coffeehouses, and clubs of the real world, as priests, encouraging new sacrifices from the world’s parishioners to the altar of God in prayer.

To quote a poem brought about in a recent fasting day from my “pen” (computer):

“Dive deep into the well of the living, fishing out the coins of blessing that God wished over you."

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