Silent Retreats: Seven Blessings & Benefits

What are the blessings and benefits of going to a silent retreat? I have been to many silent retreats from one day to over thirty days and I have always experienced many benefits and blessings through them. I have listed those that I can recall here, although not all of them are experienced in every retreat. The benefits and blessings are like a fountain and what it dispenses are abundant, life-giving and multi-faceted. Here are seven blessings I have experienced.

First, physical rest. Like most Singaporeans, I am often unaware of how much I needed rest and sleep. I was so caught up with the church work, family commitments, unticked boxes in my “To Do” list, and meetings that I often failed to attend to my body’s plea. I push my body and prop it up at night to its brink. In a silent retreat, I quiet myself and slow down. Quickly I begin to hear my body’s sigh. I embrace my limits and have my naps and unbounded sleep. Imperceptibly my body would rejuvenate, and the joy and sparkle would return. 

Second, processing of past events and experiences. Being proactive and productive is drilled into us by our culture, but being reflective has to be learned. There is no better place to learn this than during a retreat because it offers space for God to be with us as we reflect on past events and experiences, both the blessings and the burdens. This conversation with God about past painful and happy experiences helps us to go back in order to go forward. It facilitates a healing process, adjusts our assumptions and perceptions, empowers us for reconciliation, and roots us in the peace of God in the midst of unchanged circumstances and ambiguous issues. I always leave the retreat house with deep peace and joy.

Third, knowledge of God and self. God reveals himself to us as we intentionally seek him in silence, solitude and prayer. “Seek and you shall find”, Jesus promised. Mostly, I find God revealing himself to me, and more of myself to me. This knowledge comes through scripture meditation and other ancient ways of prayer, through reflection of how God is present in my past experiences, through the Lords’ Supper, and through what I observe and experience day by day in the retreat center.

Fourth, transformation. The knowledge of God and self often led to repentance, trust, commitment, directional change, worship and praise. It is not mere head knowledge but formational knowledge born out of illumination and truth encounters. Many years back I was going through a burn-out and a lengthy retreat restored me completely. You can read about this HERE. It was a transforming experience that convinced me that set apart times of seeking God in solitude and silence are vitally important for all followers of Christ, particularly those in the front-lines of the Lord’s service. 

Fifth, learning to seek and know God. Free from all earthly distractions and duties, I find myself having the space and time to learn to be intimate with God.  The many hours devoted to prayer, whether regulated or spontaneous, individual or together with others, in your room or in the chapel or outdoors, lend itself to intensive training and learning of what it means to pray. Most Singaporean Christians hardly pray – they are bombarded every day with a hundred things! The retreat gives you an undisturbed space to form a deeper connection with God and to form a habit of daily prayer and reflection, however small the beginning may seem. Armed with this success, one is more assured when one goes back into the fight of the daily grind, because he or she now has a stronger connection with God and is more confident about praying through life.

Sixth, patient hope. Retreatants often come with burning questions or issues. The felt need has to be strong for a Singaporean to sacrifice precious annual leave and money which could be used for a vacation or expensive device. They seek God with an intense expectation of a clear answer from God during the retreat, preferably by the middle of it. Sometimes God does address the issue concerned and answers or direction is graciously granted. Other times, in fact, most times this expectation of a quick satisfactory answer is met in a different way from what is expected by the retreatant.  

The biblical Job demanded an answer from God for his “unjust” suffering and got nothing God’s revelation of his glory and greatness. No intelligible logical answer was given to the mystery of why a righteous man like him had to suffer so much. God drawing near to him and revealing his greatness is deemed sufficient to root Jobs faith in the sovereignty of God. This often happens in retreat: we want an answer to help in decision-making but God simply draws near and reminds us of who he is, and invites us to trust him. God beckons us to wait without worrying. God invites us to hope.

Seventh, learning discernment. Spiritual discernment is a neglected gift, one we should all pray for and develop. I have found a growth in my ability to distinguish the thoughts, desires and feelings that comes from the devil, or my old self, or from God. I learn to discern the idols in my life: those things that I need to be freed from, so that the choices I make are glorifying to God. I learn to detect the devil’s specially designed tactics of attacking my specific weaknesses. I learn to be more sensitive to the Spirit’s movements in my heart.

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Psalm 88: The End Psalm

Last Tuesday evening, my cousin went home to be with the Lord. She had fought a long-drawn battle with cancer for many years. Her treatment reached a stage where the Assisi Hospice at Thomson Road became the best place for her to spend the last weeks of her life.

I confess that I struggle to journey with people who are seriously ill or dying. I admire those who compassionately, patiently, faithfully journey with the dying. They suffer with the dying friend over every setback and regression, and rejoice with them over every step of progress and hope. They hold their hands, look at them in the eyes, listen to them, serve them gently and generously, act and speak kindly to them. I know everyone has limited strengths, but I cannot help but feel totally inept compared to these Mother Teresas. Most of the time, I feel helpless during a visit, and empty, worn and down after it. I sit, I listen, I hear stories and confessions, I serve the bread and wine, I sing, read scriptures, and pray, I leave, and I hope my presence somehow helped.

Kubler Ross observed five stages of loss among the dying: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I can recognize these stages in varying forms and expressions among those about to go home to God too. I do not try to control or fix them, but just notice them as they appear, disappear and re-appear as time went on till the sick persons come to a place where they are at peace and are willing, even wishing, to go to their loving God and Saviour as soon as possible.

Interestingly, during this period, I have come to Psalms 88 in my regular meditations. I felt drawn into its depths. It is such a sad, depressing, dark, heart-breaking psalm. I learned in seminary that such psalms are called “lament” psalms and served a liturgical and communal purpose for the Jews throughout history. I observed that this psalm does not have a hopeful ending to it unlike other such lament psalms. It is bereft of hope, except the address of the Lord as “God of my salvation”. 

This psalm is of one who has suffered from his youth throughout his life and feels like one who is abandoned by God, shunned by friends and about to die. I wrote on my Bible the emotions present: despair, guilt, anger, trapped, despised, bargaining, bewildered, lonely, abandonment, assaulted, hopelessness. As I meditated on this psalm it dawned on me that some of these emotions may have been felt by my cousin as she laid in the hospice. These range of emotions would possibly be experienced by those suffering and waiting for death. The psalm gave a painful but real sense of one who felt close to death. As I look from outside at all the pain and tears and pleas in the psalm, it moved me to be keenly aware of my frailty, my hour.

The darkness and pain of this psalm was not relieved by the three prayers (ver 1,9,13) that prefaced the three sections. The black sheet can only be lifted by a knowledge that these psalmists do not have: the blessed revelation of what Jesus death and resurrection accomplished for us who live under the new covenant. The curtains open to let in the Light that dispels all darkness and shadows, when we who know the grace of the Lord Jesus, affirm the great hope of a resurrection similar to that of our Lord who died and rose again. This hope alone can transfigure everything at any hospice and any deathbed.

Is the psalm 88 of any use then in this era of the new covenant? Yes it has its uses. For one it provides a contrasting background that highlights and demonstrates the complete and final victory of Good Friday and Easter over suffering and death. If there is no black night, we would never have been able to fully appreciate a beautiful dawn or sunny day!

I also feel the psalm can be a useful passage to pray with for people who are at the end stage of life. It will help them to express their struggles and longings, and to surface and process the authentic and real emotions and struggles they find difficult to label. It may trigger memories and emotions that the person can then reflect upon and talk with the Lord about. As this is done, ideally with a spiritual director, one can by God’s grace find a place of perfect peace, assurance and hope as he or she waits to be hugged and taken home by their heavenly Father. 

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Deeper Friendship with Jesus

A deeper friendship with Jesus – this was one of the strong desires that surfaced during my prayer retreat I made last year before my retirement in November. I did not want my times with God to be dominated by ministry burdens, decisions, church issues, and preaching preparation as it was during my pastorate. I wanted my relationship with God to be more like a friendship. “I not longer regard you as servants but as friends” was what Jesus said to his disciples before his passion. There would be a greater warm intimacy, more disclosure and collaborative partnership in the relationship. When I am with my pastor friends I do not only ask favours and request information and talk about ministry issues, I also talk about what’s going on in my family and life, my everyday stuff, and light-hearted matters and incidents too. I wanted something of this in my relationship with the Lord too. So I have been praying more for this grace recently: a deeper friendship with Jesus, and started talking to him about anything and everything about the day that passed. In addition, I saw a small booklet at my bedside table titled, Keeping In Touch With God by M. Basilea Schlink, the founder of the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary. I browsed the pages and saw that this could be helpful in fulfilling this desire that surfaced during my prayer retreat last year. Let me share a snippet here, a prayer she wrote that I found resonant with what I want in my relationship with God. I hope it stirs a similar desire in you to want a deeper friendship with Jesus too.

JESUS, YOU SHALL BE FIRST IN MY LIFE.

I want to talk with you and work for you.

I want to think over everything with you, making all my decisions with you.

Nothing shall be done without you, for I do not want to shut you out of my life.

Bind me tightly to you so that nothing – no work, no burden, no other interest, no joy – can separate us during this day.

So may I constantly live in your holy presence: FOR YOU ARE THERE!

M. BASILEA SCHLINK
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