Friday, February 14, 2014

Sometimes you just need to get away ...

A personal retreat is a very healthy exercise. I started to go out to a Christian centre at a hill farm on Pendle Hill when I lived in Lancashire. Now that I am living in the south it has taken me a while, but I think I have discovered somewhere that I can go for such days out. St Katherine's Parmoor is a grand house owned by the Sue Ryder Prayer Fellowship deep in the Buckinghamshire countryside.I went there a couple of weeks ago for the first time.

A day like this is for praying, listening to God, slowing down from the daily routine, and reading. It's a day for regaining perspective. I read some Bible, but I also took the draft of a new book about personal revival by Mike Dwight. I am hoping we will be able to publish Out of the Desert (provisional title) later this year, but the challenge to be satisfied with nothing less than the presence of God, and being willing to pay the price of repentance, silence and dedication to get it, was very helpful to my meditations.

In some respects this short book will stand in the same informal series as The Cost of the Kingdom by Elliott Tepper and Enough by Helen Roseveare. Like the short books of A W Tozer, they look inoffensive enough, but pack an explosive charge to blow you back on course if you are veering off. Nothing can take the place of a heart of worship and dedication to stand in the presence of God. That is where we begin with God, and the point to which we must always return.

Have you read these books? Are there others that perform this function for you?
By the way, we intend to get Continuous Revival by Norman Grubb back in stock soon.

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