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Potomac Park Camp is a prayer and retreat center owned and operated by the Potomac District Council.

I head there for a number of reasons. I must say that cost is a major factor. Credential holders are given a clean room featuring king size bed and bathroom with all linens provided. And that is pretty much it. There are no frills, no TV, no radio, no internet, and most importantly no body. When rooms are available it means that there is no camp in session, so it is a quiet and docile place filled with small cottages of retired ministers and missionaries. It really makes a great place to unplug and focus on God. All of this for the incredibly low price of thirty dollars. (Up 50% since the last time I stayed there.)

I headed up on a Wednesday evening, and chose to do some things different. I wanted to maximize my focus so I cut out my regular distractions. I left my laptop at home, and even invited my wife to enjoy using it while I was gone. I turned my cell phone off. I loaded up the truck with just a few pieces of clothing and started the hour and a half trek towards West Virginia. I made the decision that my drive time would either be spent in silence or listening to hymns, and because the truck I drive does not lend itself to silence the hymns won out. But they began a refreshing spiritual atmosphere that I enjoyed on my trip.

When I arrived at camp I grabbed the key that was taped to the door of the office, showed myself to my room, and celebrated the official start to this personal retreat. My eyes were heavy from driving, and so I thought I would lie down just for a short while, then get up and get to work on this retreat. Then something happened that I do not think has ever happened to me before. I laid down for a short nap at 6:30 p.m. and awoke at 6:15 a.m. Dang it! I had slept for half of the twenty four hours that I was supposed to be retreating. And while this may seem like not that big a deal, it was hugely significant on my retreat. It made me remember the prophet that the Lord caused to sleep and Adam when the rib was removed. In both cases God was preparing something good while they were sleeping.

I decided to recalibrate my schedule. After all, I had lost several hours worth of spiritual work I had planned the night before. I decided to start with a walk around the grounds. I prayed, enjoyed the solitude, and fasted the blackberries that were growing wild in the bushes on the back of the campus. I found that during this prayer walk the seeds of my reflection for the remainder of the trip really got their start.

Let’s start with me…

This is how my prayer began. “Well, Lord I want to pray as I walk, so I guess I should start with me.” When I heard me say those words I could not help but feel foolish. But it was a good foolish, like when you make a discovery of the obvious, but at least no one was around to say, “duh!”. I apologized to God, and reframed the conversation. “Sorry Lord, let’s start with You.”

I think that is the way it goes sometimes. We get going on our merry way, and doing God’s work and suddenly we are all wrapped up in ourselves. I had to unwrap. I had to peel away selfishness, and instead humble myself as a means to try and really hear from Him. After moments of worship, of repeating attributes of God that I have seen first hand, I settled into prayer for an ongoing work of God in my life, in the life of my family, and ministry.

How far am I???

As I turned the corner on the back side of the camp, I realized that I was as far from my room now as I could go and still remain on the property. It caused me to think about how close or far I felt from God. I know that in a metaphysical sense we are always close. He is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. I know that I am as close to Him as I want to be, but come on how far am I? See, I think that a retreat like peels away everything, down to the core elements of your spiritual being. It causes me to notice things that I do not notice in my routine of living and spiritual discipline. There are times I think that I am close to God, but I have not been watching Him as closely as I should. And I notice that I have wondered away like my three year old when she sees another family. Suddenly she has stopped to watch them as I head where we are supposed to be going. She is with me, but she is just not with me. And I think retreats like this allow us to get our bearings again of where God is so we can get a move on to catch up with Him.

This is what I do?!?

As my feet got back to pavement, and I was entering the final quarter of my walk, I had this thought: “This is great! I feel close to God. I wish I did this more often. I need to do this more often. This is what I do! What if someone found out that this is what I do?!?” I was somewhat arrested at this thought. Remember, at this point I have only enjoyed a walk having slept for twelve hours. Here in the middle of feeling great about a fulfilling time with God, I am confronted with my own insecurity of what other people might think.

How would people respond if they knew I was “wasting” my time this way; sleeping and taking walks. There are probably many people who would enjoy a chance to slip away from everything just to relax. But wait. This is not wasting time. Suddenly the insecurity subsided. This is what I do. I get caught up too often in the mentality of a hireling. I do not punch a clock. I am a man of God. Because I am a minister, people are looking to me to have heard from God. When the rubber meets the road in their life, and they speak with me, they want to know whether they are hearing the wisdom of God, or if they are getting the guesses of a man who has been working too many hours to have spent any meaningful time with Him. That is when I decided that this must become a regular habit for me. When I was packing up I told my daughter that I was, “Going to the mountain to pray.” I was realizing on this walk that the mountain does not move. It is up to me to go to the mountain. I know that metaphor may seem a stretch, so let me use one from the scripture. The scripture that I felt led to read upon returning from my walk was from the book of Exodus. Moses went to the Tent of Meeting. When he went there the cloud of God’s presence descended on the tent. All the people would stop what they were doing to watch, and when Moses came out of the Tent of Meeting his face would be radiant from being in the presence of God. And the people would know that he had been with God. That is what I want from the habit of retreat with God. I do not want the glory of having been with God as some way of puffing myself up in importance. I just want to offer God’s truth to people. And the only way is to be with Him, in the cloud of His presence.

Stick to the plan…

As the morning went on, I got myself dressed and ready for the day. I headed over to one of those cottages to talk with someone. Up to this point I had enjoyed the solitude of my event. Not talking to anyone, feeling the separation, and listening were great disciplines on this journey, but there was a voice I wanted to hear. Sister Betty Goggin was the wife of my first pastor. In fact, I called him “Poppy” an affectionate term that shows the closeness of our family’s relationship to this couple. After he passed away Sister Goggin was elected our pastor following his death. She is an old woman now. She has had many health problems lately, and described some of the pain she lives with constantly. But I know she spends her time with God. I wanted to hear what the Lord was speaking to her, to hear if the Lord would speak to me. And He did.

After exchanging information about each other and our families, news of this and that, I asked her what the Lord had been speaking to her. She said that He has been reminding her throughout the scripture that He has a plan. She might not know what it all is, she might not understand her part, but He has a plan. So until she understands it, she has to be a learner. Even at her age, she is still learning the plans of God.

She said, “He has a plan for you, Ben. You may not see how He is going to do it, but you need to know He has a plan.”

I felt like I used to at the end of old episodes of the A-Team. Hannibal, the colonel, would always figure a way out of their problem, and end each episode with the line, “I love it when a plan comes together.” I know just how Murdock and B.A. Baracus must have felt when Hannibal had a plan. God has a plan for me and I am living it. There is great confidence that wells up inside you when you hear the voice of the Holy Spirit speak to your soul. Things I have been going through as a pastor are for a purpose, and we are on the right track. Stick to the plan.

The rest of the retreat…

I enjoyed the rest of the day in different times of prayer, meditation, and reading. As I loaded up and headed home, I knew that this is a discipline that needs to be practiced in my life regularly. Its greatest benefit is that it disconnects me from the routine and rigors of the lifestyle I lead. It is refreshing and renewing to regain perspective of God, hear his voice, and recalibrate my life. My only change going forward is to be sure to start the retreat on the morning of day one, not the evening, that way I could stay longer.

--Ben