Mahaffey Camp Prayer Retreat September 28 - 30, 2008
Hear the words of Jesus’ invitation.
“Come away with me to a quiet place and rest awhile.”
Mark 6:31
Schedule
Sunday Evening
6:30 pm Orientation – and a snack J
7:30 pm Group – Invitation to slow down!
9:30 pm Personal Journaling - "Tell God why you came."
10 pm Free Time - Fellowship (late arrivals)
Monday
8:30 am Breakfast
9 am Group – Devotion / Private Worship
10:15 am Group – The Pearl of Great Price
12 am Lunch
1 pm Group – Devotions – Justice & Tender Mercy.
2 pm Individual – Compassion / Tender Mercy.
3 pm Group – Abba Father.
4 pm Individual – Regrets and other intimacy killers.
5 pm Supper
6 pm Group – The calling.
7 pm Group - Fireside Service if weather permits
Tuesday (half-day)
8:30 am Breakfast
9 am Group – Devotion – The Desire
11:30 am Group – Consecration & Communion.
12 am Lunch
Warmest Greetings,
I will be available in the dining hall during the retreat. Feel free to come by if you get stuck, would like a resource or would like some direction.
Howard Darr
Sunday 7:30 pm Group – Invitation to slow down!
Sunday 9:30 pm Individual - Prayer Journal
I came to this prayer retreat because . . .
Monday 9 am – Group [i]I want to start out this day with you making a decision. Go through the next questions if you must, but please read the bottom of the page.
Have I failed to lead in healing the fear, anxiety and heartache in my home, my neighborhood?
Have I contempt for others: the less educated, differing races, economic or religious groups.
Have I dismissed senior citizens as merely leftovers . . . by not affirming their worth and dignity?
Have I in any way stifled the personal development of another?
Have I demanded respect without respecting the other?
Have I kept others waiting?
Have I carelessly forgotten (ignored) an appointment, call or date?
Have I been difficult for others to reach, feeling too busy or too important be available?
Have I not paid attention when someone is talking to me?
Have I kept silent to be safe?
Have I valued only those people who are profitable to me?
Have I blackened the character of anyone by harmful remarks, whether true or false?
Have I betrayed a trust, violated a confidence, or involved myself in the lives of others through indiscreet words and actions?
Have I concentrated on what’s in it for me rather than what’s in me for it?
Have I failed to appreciate what is because of might-have-beens, should-have-beens, and could-have-beens.
Well?
Having made a dismal response to this set of questions, will I be gentle with myself, as the Master is, humbly acknowledge that the Word hasn’t taken sovereign possession of my life, accept my own need for conversion, transformation, sanctification, quickly repent, ask forgiveness, waste no time in self-recrimination, smile at my own frailty and rejoice in the unearned extravagant mercy of Abba Father?
Take a 30 minute nap or maybe a hike, please be alone and silent. In the last 30 minutes become a hopeful person
Becoming a hopeful person. Spend this time asking for God’s grace to see yourself as God sees you.
[ii]1 Peter 5:6, 7 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety (distraction) on him because he cares for you.
List your discouragements, cares, angers, and frustrations.Or
You can write them on a separate piece of paper and dispose of them by shredding.
Where you do feel a lack of hope?
Monday 10:15 am – Group – The Pearl of Great Price.
Matthew 13: 44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
Just for the record. . . Here is what I have to sell.
Please list the top ten things you could sell to get something more valuable.
Item Price
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Total
How much is that worth?????
Is it enough to buy a pack of gum?
Is it enough to buy a week of groceries?
Is it enough to buy a spouse?
Is it enough to buy happy thoughts for a loved one?
Is it enough to buy the health of a person with cancer?
Is it enough to buy back the innocence of an abused person?
Is it enough to buy a good conscience?
Is it enough to buy integrity?
Is it enough to buy salvation?
Read all of Isaiah 55 and then read it again the second time and answer the following questions.
Does God want to destroy YOU????
What was there in us poor, fallen, depraved, sinful creatures to awaken His desire?
Is it his desire to bless his creation?
Is this a tender / merciful invitation to save his creation?
What is God tenderly calling you to right now?
Monday 10:30 am – Pearls continued
Matthew 13: 45 – 46 “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.
If you are used to interpreting the parable of the pearl like this . . .
The sinner is the man who is seeking the most valuable. As a sinner I will know that Christian salvation is the most valuable thing I can possess. Then I as a sinner when I earnestly and diligently pursue salvation, my efforts will be rewarded. I will find Christ, the Pearl of great price. Having found Him, as the parable predicts I will sell all I hold dear, abandon my worldly stuff, surrender my will and dedicate myself to God I will secure salvation.
Would you at least consider this . . . the first sinners fled/hid from God?
Please read Genesis 3: 1 -9 and pay particular attention to.
“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
Write down how God looked for you and found you . . . hiding because you were naked and afraid.
Did God find them to destroy Adam and Eve???? Did God find you to destroy you?
Monday 11 am - Pearl continued
Matthew 18: 10 -14 NKJV "Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven. "For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost. "What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety–nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying? "And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety–nine that did not go astray.”Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.
Angels interceding!
Shepherd does not write off a small loss but seeks after the lost!
HE FINDS IT . . . THERE IS NO OTHER EXPECTED ENDING!
He rejoices!
What exactly is God in heavens will?
WHY????
It is at this point I pray you have the grace of God upon you to understand that this narrative is VERY merciful/tender.
It is at this point I pray you receive the revelation of God’s mercy/tenderness toward YOU!
Write down the revelation.
Monday 11:30 am – Pearls continued
Meditative Thoughts on Pearls
You can cut a diamond but if you try to cut or divide a pearl it will be destroyed.
The Pearl is produced by a living creature.
The pearl is the result of suffering.
The pearl is formed slowly and gradually. It does not come into existence in a single day.
The desire of God:
Please read Ephesians 5:25, 2 Corinthians 8:9, 1 Peter 1:18 -23
What?
Who?
What was the price?
Re-visit Isaiah 55 respond to . . .
Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
[iii]Respond to “For Me to Live is Christ.”
Monday 1 pm – Group – Devotion – Justice & Tender Mercy.
I had a person get very angry with me once. They lost their temper, yelled and said terrible things. When the heat of the moment was over they came to me. I thought that they might apologize. Instead they said . . . I don’t know what came over me. I am not the person who said those things. I did not ask but the question came to me; well then who was it?
Our most basic emotion from our heart when we are distressed is anger OR fear. We strike out those who frustrate, hurt, neglect or oppress us. It is therefore no surprise that we would assume that God will be angry and vengeful just like us.
Earlier we studied Isaiah 55: 8-9
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
God takes great exception to the misapplication of justice. In Amos 6:12b God asks his people “Can horses gallop over boulders? Can oxen be used to plow them? But that’s how foolish you are when you turn justice into poison and the sweet fruit of righteousness into bitterness.” NLT
Because of God’s tender mercy, the light from heaven is about to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace." Luke 1:78-79
Zachariah under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit describes God AS tender mercy. We talk about a person as having a good heart and unless you are a cardiologist, you are talking about the character of the person. The good news is God is not at all like my friend who was angry and vengeful. Instead the heart of God was tender mercy! This afternoon let us receive the tender mercy of God the Father. Let him lead you in the way of Life everlasting.
Monday 2 pm – Individual – Compassion / Tender Mercy
[iv]In the Old Testament it (compassion & tender mercy) lay at the foundation of Israel’s faith in Yahweh. For it was out of His compassion that He, by a marvelous act of power, delivered them from Egyptian bondage and called them to be His own people. Nothing, therefore, is more prominent in the Old Testament than the ascription of compassion, pity and mercy to God
Exodus 34:6 – 7a And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.
Jesus Christ, in whom God was "manifest in the flesh," had compassion on the crowds, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Matthew 9:36
Compassion is the translation of the Greek word splagchnizomai, "to have the bowels yearning,"
“Splagchnizomai” The writer uses a physical or biological word, the bowels, denoted chiefly the higher viscera, the heart, lungs, liver as the seat of warm, tender emotions or feelings
Imagine a mother tenderly reaching down to her hurting crying baby.
Take this time to pray that Christ’s Holy Spirit will fill you with a revelation of God’s mercy.
Write it down.
Monday 3 pm – Group – Abba Father
[v]Abba – like our “Daddy” – is originally a child’s word. Jesus assumed this family term of tenderness, drawn from the child’s vocabulary, to use as a form of addressing God, must have struck Jesus’ contemporaries as irreverent and offensively familiar. Indeed it is recorded that they took offence at Jesus.
John 8:51-59
I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death." At this the Jews exclaimed, "Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that if anyone keeps your word, he will never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?" Jesus replied, "If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad." "You are not yet fifty years old," the Jews said to him, "and you have seen Abraham!" "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!" At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
I want you to pray addressing God as Abba Father and illustrate or write about the experience
Write down what is in your heart to pray.
Write down what you thought of while praying.
Monday 4 pm – Individual – Regrets and other intimacy killers. Read the following passage Luke 22:1 – 62 and respond to the following passages from the text.