Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Communion

“I will give You thanks with all my heart; I will sing Your praise before the heavenly beings. I will bow down toward Your holy temple and give thanks to Your name for Your constant love and faithfulness. You have exalted Your name and Your promise above everything else. On the day I called, You answered me; You increased strength within me.” (Psalm 138:1-3)

Pressure-packed days can drain energy, wilt wills, and glaze eyes. Would that be a good time for a personal retreat? Whether a few minutes, a few hours, or a few days, a personal retreat is mainly just a time set aside just for personal communion with the Lord. David saw the wisdom of this in Psalm 138.

In a personal communion, we give thanks to the Lord with all our heart. Every experience, every thought, every emotion – we acknowledge these, but then we lay them down and bring everything that is within us to an apex in which we say, “Lord, from the bottom of my heart and with my whole heart, I give thanks to You.”

In a personal communion, we praise Him whether voiced or unvoiced. You can sing praises to God in your own mind. Songs of faith guide us through the gates of communion into the joy of God’s presence. “Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah.” “Great Is Thy Faithfulness.” “How Great Thou Art.” “Alleluia.” “I Exalt Thee.” Try one and see how it goes.

In a personal communion, we worship the Lord. Certainly praise is part of this, but worship is essentially declaring the “worth-ship” of God and observing it ourselves. It is the expression of openness toward God and seeking the Lord from our heart, our mind, and our soul. Worship is declaring trust in the constant love and faithfulness of God, and thereby experiencing strength which the Lord increases as we worship.

In personal communion, we find strength from the Lord to face whatever otherwise would dilute it.

Lord, You are our greatest joy, the strength of life, the reason for our existence. May this day be a day of personal communion with You. Amen.

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