Spiritual retreats have significantly impacted my life. During a retreat, something shifts in my heart, like a ratchet rotates it one way and it won’t twist back. In a concentrated time of prayer and reflection, I connect with God again, and I see the world with a new set of eyes.
I like attending retreats, but I also like offering retreats. I want the same experience for others.
Five years ago, my wife and I decided to pursue purchasing a retreat lodge. We spent nine months updating our old country home and another eighteen months staging and selling our house. Once we sold it, we began a year-long search for a retreat center.
A year and a half ago, we moved into a house that seemed perfect. It had a living quarters for the two of us, and it had another living area for eighteen guests that included a meeting room, six bedrooms, five bathrooms, and a kitchen.
In 2019, we hosted eight retreats. It was everything we dreamed.
At a meeting the Sunday before Christmas, our HOA neighbors demanded that we stop hosting retreats. My wife and I were stunned and speechless. It felt like everything we had worked toward for the last five years had been turned upside-down. Our dreams had been thwarted.
What Would You Do?
My first response (after catching my breath from that astonishing punch to my solar-plexus) was to pursue a battleplan with ferocity: my wife and I deliberated, I spent hours mulling this over with my closest friends, I had multiple discussions with a lawyer, and I prayed.
When people face major obstacles, Scripture shows two kinds of response: Fight or Flight.
- When Abram and Sarai’s dream of a child is thwarted by old age, they scheme and act. Ishmael is born; a child, yes, but not the son of the promise.
- When the children of Israel spy out the Promised Land, their dream is thwarted by giants in the land, so they conspire together, and run.
Which is wiser? To push ahead or to sit? Action or inaction? Confidence or humility? Sometimes God is simply correcting our character: Jacob’s impulsive aggressivity needed to be put out of joint, and Gideon’s fearful passivity needed a trumpet blast and a fiery torch.
But God is not formulaic. Moses was rebuked for his action (when he murdered a man) as well as for his inaction at the Red Sea (when God said, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward.”)
[I understand that many readers are facing far more shocking news than I am, like illness, loss of a loved one, or financial ruin. I’m simply sharing what God is saying to me in my minor shock.]
This Time I Tried to Do It Right
When I moved into my neighborhood, I had obviously miscalculated. This time around I was determined to do it right. I sought wise counsel (legal and spiritual) and I took time to weigh all the options. Then in my prayer time this morning I remembered the title of an old Poem: Young Man, Your Arm Is Too Short to Box with God.
I realized: if God wants to purify something in my heart, he will do it whether my plans are perfect or faulty. And if God wants to use this house for a retreat, Pharaoh’s armies won’t stand in the way. If God is really Lord, my call is to look to him, not to the giants in the land, and certainly not to my faintest idea of what might be called a good plan, be it action or waiting.
God calls us to prayerfully seek him and map out a strategy, yes; but then to commit our plans to him and watch him “direct our paths.” If I was a fool to trust my defective plans when I bought this house, I would be a bigger fool to trust my perfect plans for fixing it.
I’ll design a plan but not trust it. I might be boxing God, and my arms don’t have the reach.
Sam
My Dreaded Psalm
Glad you shared this news and your excellent insights thus far. Joining you in praying for the way through. As I prayed just now the book and testimony of Nehemiah came to mind. May the Lord guide you even as He did Nehemiah in the building of the walls of Jerusalem in spite of the opposition. May modern Sanballats and Tobiahs witness the hand and favor of God upon you, and may the work God has called you to do be accomplished fully.
Amen!
Mary Beth,
I’m amazed you bring up Nehemiah. I’m actually preaching on his this coming Sunday!
I like your prayer, “may the hand and favor of God” be on me. Thanks! I want both to befriend my neighbors (instead of battling them) AND to see God accomplish what seems impossible to be. (But rebuilding Jerusalem probably seemed impossible to everyone back then as well.)
Thanks,
Sam
Well said, Mary Beth. I agree. Sam, I am praying for the success of your dreams of a conference/retreat center in your house.
I cannot believe the parallel experience my husband and I have lived to your story! What did you decide to do?
Hi Pam,
God created community; even in the Garden of Eden he said we shouldn’t be alone. And I think part of community is sharing storied that encourage others, especially in hard times.
For those of you who don’t know Pam, she is a living testimony to sharing her story to help others. Here is her website: https://pamvredevelt.com/
Sam
Re your Nehemiah connection….when, after 2 years of bureaucracy I was finally allowed into a Fed prison to preach I asked the guys what they wanted 1st – Their answer? Nehemiah!
I had to laugh imagining how many congregations would have said the same.
Of course – Nehemiah is all about walls & that’s prison life.
And FYI – these guys told me they’d been praying for 2 years for God to send someone to them – someone to preach in Spanish. I studied this language beginning at age 12 & it served me well in intl business. That was my plan. But God had an “inside plan” ?
And no wall can hinder Him – ride on, King Jesus!
M Crandall
Hi Margaret,
I continue to be inspired by God’s answered prayers (of the prisoners) and how God transforms our plans for his plans in ways we would never imagine (I will make you fishers of men).
Thanks
Sam,
It sounds like your heart is in the right place regarding your neighbors and the work God has for you to do!
I love the way Father God confirms matters and guides by Holy Spirit Who dwells in each of us. I have been seeing Him do so for many years now, and I am always grateful and encouraged by His very specific intervention and the intimacy He offers to His children. He is so good!
He is good indeed.
I continue to sense a mounting set of convictions from God for what to do; and they all have to do with letting God’s glory shine through letting him act in ways I would never imagine.
When Joseph is sent TO Israel he says to his brothers, “You meant it for evil but God meant it for good.” When Israel is called OUT of Egypt, God tells Moses to ask Pharaoh, but that Pharaoh won’t respond until he is “compelled” by a might hand.
Which is God.
Sam
Amen, Sam! We can choose to pursue our own plans – regardless of their effect on our neighbors… but if we are patient, we may find Genesis 50 coming to bear in our own lives. It’s always a good idea to trust God and not run ahead under our own power. And when we think about doing good to our neighbors, we need to expand the idea of who our neighbors are. Th Good Samaritan was kind and helpful to a man who was of the race of people who were the declared enemies of his own. He helped a Jewish man whom the Priests and Pharisees had passed by. The most interesting aspect of that story for me is that The Good Samaritan actually WENT OUT OF HIS WAY to help this enemy of his people and actually paid money to see him healed. WOW! Can we practice that kind of selfless “AGAPE” love today ? Only with Jesus in our hearts …. AMEN!
Sam, what happened last year? Will you still be hosting retreats? Did Covid change anything? I do find it interesting that all this happened right before Covid hit. It’s almost like, “He knew.” 😉
Hi David,
Thanks for asking. I’m still waiting on God for the retreats. He is up to something that I don’t understand.
But isn’t that always the case? He is ALWAYS up to something I don’t understand. Cuz He is God and I’m not.
Interesting, because of COVID, all my retreats would have been canceled anyway. As you say, “It’s almost like He knew.”
Sam