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Section 2—The Purpose of a Retreat

“The deepest desire of our hearts is for union with God. From the first moment of our existence, our most powerful yearning is to fulfill the original purpose of our lives—to see Him more clearly, to love Him more dearly, to follow Him more nearly, as the old prayer says. We are made for God, and nothing less will really satisfy us.”

—Brennan Manning¹

As you consider taking a retreat, keep in mind that the emphasis of the retreat is to help you develop and build your relationship with God. Ben Johnson and Paul Lang suggest that there are several reasons for taking a retreat.²

1.A retreat will help you to attain balance in your life.

For those who are high achievers, it may be possible that in the quest for success everything else is sacrificed. Is the success sought worth the price being paid? On the other hand, there are those who lack purpose and direction in life. For them a retreat offers the opportunity to look deeply into their souls and determine what changes need to be made.

2.A retreat offers the opportunity to focus on persistent questions of your life.

You can take the time to ask “What is the meaning of my life?” If we simply live each day without looking at the end goal of life, we can easily miss out on the purpose of life.

3.A retreat offers the opportunity to examine personal relationships.

Do you take time to look at the relationships that are at the centre of your life? This can include family, friends, co-workers, neighbours and those in your community of faith. Are there issues that need to be resolved? Are there people you need to connect with more intentionally? Are there some relationships that you need to let go of because they are toxic or destructive?

4.A retreat helps you to build into your life the rhythm of engagement and withdrawal.

Rhythm is built into the fabric of life. There is a rhythm to the seasons, there is a 24-hour rhythm that includes night and day, and God established a rhythm at creation when he declared six days of work and a seventh day of rest. As we examine our lives we can discern if we have a proper balance between engagement and withdrawal. Without this, we become consumed by a life of engagement that can easily overwhelm us.

5.A retreat allows us the opportunity to establish or re-establish our relationship with God in new and different ways.

The great commandment of Scripture is “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37–39 ESV). Do you truly love God, and is this love being expressed in your relationship with others? Time alone will allow you to explore these and other questions.

Do any or all of these reasons convince you of the need to take some time away to be alone with God?

¹ Brennan Manning, Abba’s Child: The Cry of the Heart for Intimate Belonging (Colorado Springs: Tyndale House Publishers, 1994, 2002, 2015), 24.

² Ben Campbell Johnson and Paul H. Lang, Time Away (Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2010), 24–28.