There he came to a cave and lodged in it.
– 1 Kings 19:9a ESV
Elijah got to this cave on Mt Horab after traveling 40 days through the wilderness. Once at the mountain, he climbed up to the cave a waited. It’s been at least 40 days since Elijah last had an encounter with God, yet here he is waiting in a cave.
When I am on retreat there is also a lot of waiting. Today marks the fourth full day of retreat. I have never been on a retreat this long and I still have four days to go. I learned a long time ago you can’t rush a retreat. Retreat gives me the space to simply BE. God has shown up in the beauty of creation that surrounds this place. I caught the sunrise this morning, it was magnificent.
There are times when I find myself being distracted by all the beauty around me. But this is a delightful distraction. One that draws me closer to God. It is a distraction in that I forget to be and I do. I posted a couple of new YouTube videos on waves crashing and the sun rising (@scottastrand) and Instagram posts (@scottastrand). But the heart of retreat is being.
In my waiting I have been pondering three words: know, delight, and desire. To know and desire God are not new themes for me when on retreat. They seem to keep coming back over and over again. I use to wonder why this is but I have come to understand that by coming back to these words I can increase what I know about God and I can deepen my desire for God.
So what have I learned since getting here to Eastern Point? I know God a bit better now as I have been reminded that not only am I to delight in the Lord, but God also delights in me. This word delight is so wonderful. Just saying the delight brings a simple to my face. The question then arises is “How do I delight in the Lord?” As I shared earlier, I am delighting in the distractions I find around here. There are still a lot of trails to explore. Oh, I finally saw the seals in the cove this morning just sunning themselves on the rocks. My spiritual director and I decided that I need to be more like a seal while I am here. Just sitting on the rocks watching the tide roll away. They know how to just BE. See, delight in the things you find along the way.
And what about desire? I have written a lot about my desire for God. Last summer I wrote a very long paper about the inner workings of Scott and desire was a key part of that. While here, I finished reading Spiritual Wanderlust by Kelly Deutsch. In this book Deutsch talks about deep desires by sharing her own story and bringing in two Christian Mystics John of the Cross and Augustine. There were a lot of things I took from the book but the three that stood out to me include: 1) The idea we can know God better by loving and desiring him than by speaking or thinking about him, 2) “Desire is one of the greatest gifts we can give to another. It is the gift of receptivity.”, and 3) That longing (desire), darkness, I-don’t-know-what, echos, and consummation is all part of prayer.
Most importantly, I am learning who it is that God created me to be. I need to spend a bit more time waiting in my “cave” listening for that still small voiced of God.