Because I grew up in a Christian home and attended church all my life, I’ve gone on countless “retreats.” In a military sense, to retreat means to back away from the enemy. This is often done to prevent defeat and capture—with the ultimate aim to strengthen and reequip your own forces so you can once again go on the offensive and hopefully be victorious.

Churches, missions, and ministries sometimes use spiritual retreats for a similar purpose—to provide temporary escape from opposing physical and spiritual forces. Perhaps taking their cue from withdrawals into the wilderness mentioned in the Bible, some Christian ministries bring their people to attractive and remote natural areas for a retreat.

The wisdom of this is evident when we consider what we’re less likely to face in such places:

. . . personal multipliers of power
        (vehicles, motorized tools, electricity, and so forth)
. . . markets and marketers
. . . external temptations
. . . wrong or disordered values
. . . lying words
. . . too many voices to attend to
. . . too many people to relate to
. . . racial, ethnic, and gender tensions
. . . personal deception and pretense (masks)
. . . meaningless entertainment
. . . an overload of news (information)
. . . an overabundance of technologies
. . . extraneous noise
. . . the need to talk
. . . constant time pressure
. . . any sense that I am in control

Most of us could benefit from lessening these man-made distractions by going on a “civilization fast.” But while there are some obvious physical benefits from this sort of retreat, this list of negatives relates primarily to the spiritual. When we’re surrounded by the many positive evidences of God’s eternal power and divine nature (Rom. 1:20) and are at the same time relieved of these many negative influences, our souls have an opportunity to rest and to remain open to the voice and calling of God’s Holy Spirit.

The solitude and quietness offered there provide opportunities for people to more thoroughly contemplate their Creator’s words in the light of His works. In so doing, they may gain wisdom similar to that attained by King Solomon:

KEY SCRIPTURE:

He spoke of trees, from the cedar tree of Lebanon even to the hyssop that springs out of the wall; he spoke also of animals, of birds, of creeping things, and of fish. And men of all nations, from all the kings of the earth who had heard of his wisdom, came to hear the wisdom of Solomon (1 Ki. 4:33-34).

When we neglect what opportunities we have to learn more about our Creator in His wild places, we are denying ourselves of knowledge that is critical to our spiritual growth and witness. Collectively, we buy thousands of books to read about knowing God. What we often miss, however, is the opportunity to enter the wild places that showcase the wonder of God’s creation—and there gain wisdom.

Marge likes to shop for groceries. I like to forage. I have to admit, though, that if our lives depended on my foraging, we’d become mighty lean. (Since almost every popular magazine has an article on dieting, maybe I could write one on the benefits of becoming a hunter-gatherer!) Wild foraging, while free, does not necessarily offer up the best-tasting food. Yet I’m getting accustomed to the quirky taste of some of nature’s freebies. In today’s post, found on the Ambling page, I muse a bit on the growing practice of foraging: finding food, spices, teas, and so forth in natural wild areas.

When I was a member of the Audubon Society, I often found that a sense of sadness and hopelessness pervaded our meetings—especially when all the threats to wild habitats were enumerated. It seemed that few in attendance believed there was a Creator, or if there was one He didn’t care about the things they cherished.

But He does care. He cares enough to promise that in the future, all nature will be refreshed, restored, and reunified (Acts 3:19-21; Eph. 1:7-10). More important, this restoration of creation will show how much He cares for us, even though we have both idolized and abused the living world that has been entrusted to us (Rom. 1:18-32 See at the end of the devotional).

KEY SCRIPTURE:
Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus.  Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets (Acts 3:19-21)

According to God’s other revelation, the Bible, the Creator Himself has come to our rescue (Jn. 1:1-14). This Savior said, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (Jn. 15:13). With these words, Jesus anticipated how He would carry out our rescue. By alluding to His own ultimate sacrifice, He showed why He could say, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (Jn. 3:16).

The apostle John wrote of Jesus, “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name” (Jn. 1:10-12).

If our Creator has proven His love for us in this way, we can have a confidence in the future for ourselves and all creation that is not just wishful thinking. J. B. Phillips’ New Testament paraphrase puts it like this:

The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own. . . . In the end the whole of created life will be rescued from the tyranny of change and decay, and have its share in that magnificent liberty which can only belong to the children of God! (Rom. 8:19,21).

Seems like a given, doesn’t it? The natural world is the material source of life. But I mean “need” in a different sense. Let me explain:

Friday, September 23, was the official beginning of autumn this year. As always, the natural world around those of us who live in America’s upper Midwest has a mood very different from the first day of spring 6 months ago. Weather, vegetation, and wild creatures have made their annual transition. In the Norway maple outside our backdoor, a male katydid has once again announced its regional dominance with a series of loud “scritches”—fast notes on warm evenings and slow ones on cool nights. Crickets add their percussions to the nighttime concert. By comparison, there were no insect sounds on the first day of spring.

In the morning, when I walk the dog, this year’s hatch of young crows is usually making a jabber of caws. They chase each other from tree to bush to tree practicing what will be serious business for them next spring: ganging together to pester and hopefully chase off owls and hawks bent on devouring their young. Then there are the seemingly omnipresent robins: Unlike in the spring when they are in mated pairs and busy about their work of nesting and reproducing, fall robins are flocking together and filling up with food to power their migration south and away from the coming snow and frigid air.

Other wonderful seasonal differences too numerous to mention are affecting my soul with a sense of constancy and regularity that brings to mind God’s renewed covenant with the earth after the flood.  Consider today’s key Scripture:

KEY SCRIPTURE:
As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease (Genesis 8:22).

With so much economic and political chaos in the human world—with wars and rumors of wars, with technological revolutions and changing forms of communication, with the massive increase in information—my soul needs to stay in touch with the eternal rhythms of God’s world. It is good to remain linked to and constantly aware of what does not change.

Considering all the many ways available to insulate and isolate ourselves from the natural world, it’s easy to have the attitude of the child who was asked by a researcher if he’d rather play indoors or outdoors. His reply: “Oh, I like to play inside; because that’s where the electrical outlets are.”

What are the lessons this child’s attitude should be teaching us about connecting with God’s world? Are we learning these lessons or ignoring them? We would be wise to ask what T. S. Eliot asked more than 70 years ago:

Where is the life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

(Opening stanza of Eliot’s “Choruses from the Rock”)

Our chief relation to creation is our dependency on it.  We cannot survive without the fruit of the earth. While hundreds of passages in God’s special revelation (the book of God’s words) support this fact, general revelation (the book of God’s works) also reminds us of this truth daily. We are totally reliant upon the fruitfulness of the creation for our health and livelihood.

This dependence is why we need to give careful consideration to the biblical principle of sowing and reaping. This principle says, in essence, that if we sow foolish and sinful behavior, we will reap negative consequences. Sometimes the consequences are the result of God’s direct action in punishment for sin, such as the curse on creation that resulted from Adam and Eve’s sin of disobedience—and for which we are still reaping negative results. Other times we reap the natural effects of ignorant or careless behavior. America’s Dust Bowl years during the Great Depression and the Soviet Union’s Chernobyl nuclear disaster are examples of this sort of reaping.

KEY SCRIPTURE:
When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land (2 Chr. 7:13-14). He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and vegetation for the service of man, that he may bring forth food from the earth, and wine that makes glad the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread which strengthens man’s heart (Ps. 104:14-15).

Often, both natural and supernatural consequences occur. A prime example is the result of Israel’s failure to give the land rest in compliance with the Sabbath laws of God. There were both natural and supernatural reasons for Sabbath-keeping. Naturally the Sabbath laws provided the rest the land needed from being pressed too hard for its produce. People and animals also required this cessation of work. [Click on the photo of the "Pennsylvania Dutch" girl and her wonderful 6-mule team in Lancaster County.  Click the return arrow to come back to the site.]

There were, however, spiritual reasons for the keeping of the Sabbath. When the people violated the Sabbath laws, God supernaturally brought judgment upon them. Read the reasons for Judah’s captivity in 2 Chronicles 36. This account is summed up in verses 20 and 21: Those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

God is concerned about the care of our spiritual nature. And it is that “inner world” that is violated when we thoughtlessly dismiss God’s command to care for the “outer world” He has given to us.

How can we celebrate the wonder of God in creation?
By recognizing that the creation is the natural and material source of life and health for all creatures, and by seeking to protect and preserve its capacity to be fruitful.