How a Religious Retreat Can Change Your Life

Learning how a religious retreat can change your life may help you to put aside all those really good reasons you have used in the past to avoid this spiritual discipline. If putting a side a day, half day or even a few solid hours to thinking about God seems a little too much of a sacrifice, put aside just a few minutes to consider the ways in which a religious retreat really can change your life. Having both led and/or attended more than 50 retreats over the last 25 years I can promise you that making a religious retreat gives you the option every single time to really get hold of and turn your life around. That might be the only good reason you need to knock down the barriers and make that religious retreat you have been so systematically avoiding.

. A Gift to Yourself. I almost always start retreats that I direct with a reference to the fact that lots of people who come to a retreat think they are performing a duty. They may come because their job or their course requires that they do so. In fact, done right retreats don't confine they free you by giving you opportunities to enjoy a private oasis. Retreats can become, in the process, many things to many people and there are lots of individual gains that people attribute to having made a retreat. What unites all retreatants though is the fact that each and every person who decides to go to a retreat for 4 hours, 24 hours or more has taken a huge step to spiritually gifting themselves. For those who spend the bulk of each day serving others, working for others, responding to others, recognizing a retreat as your own gift to yourself is a unique and liberating experience that you can savor throughout the retreat and recall in the future.

2. Centering on what has meaning in your life. I have often been on retreat with people who have issues. In fact one of the best reasons to make a religious retreat is simply because retreats allow time for people to put all their daily concerns about relationships, jobs and money on hold and settle in to think about what is really important in life. In living our day to day existence we spend lots of time on things that in the end we recognize really don't amount to a hill of beans. In the meantime we sidestep or ignore those harder to deal with issues that actually make up the central core of our existence. Going on a religious retreat can be an intellectual jail break that allows you to step away from the more mundane and open your mind and heart to what is central in your life.

3. Seeing God through the eyes of others. While a religious retreat takes us away briefly from our everyday relationships, many retreats do involve some interaction with others. Even if your interaction is limited to the retreat director or staff, you will find that a good reason to make a religious retreat is because it does provide the opportunity for you to see and hear God through the medium of another person. We have an image of God that we carry with us, but for most of us knowing God is a work in progress. Going on retreat and hearing new takes on spiritual issues can help us to fine tune our own working image of God.

4. Hearing God's Words Anew. If your faith revolves in part around scripture than going on a religious retreat can provide you with a wonderful opportunity to share the word of God with others and reflect on that word in new and surprising ways. It is not just the spiritual director of a retreat that has something to offer in this regard. Other retreatants bring their own experience with the Word of God to the table. If conversation is part of your retreat experience you may find tremendous spiritual refreshment in listening to how others hear God's word. If no discussions are included in your religious retreat it is likely that you will have reflective time that will allow you to read again your favorite, or most challenging, scripture passages and perhaps really allow yourself to hear God's words anew in your heart

5. Renewing your faith, hope and love. My own retreat experience has taught me that even in a silent retreat ( not my favorite medium) it is entirely likely that you will finish the retreat enhanced by the spirituality you sense around you. Reflecting amidst a community of believers can be an exceptional way to experience an interior expansion of our own faith, hope and love. If discussions and conversation are also part of your retreat experience the effect of community may even be multiplied.

6. Regrouping for the future. While all of the fore-mentioned reasons to participate in a religious retreat have their own significance for each person, for me the real payoff of any retreat is the fact that it allows time for retreatants to regroup for the future. Going on a religious retreat is like declaring a spiritual New Year's Day for yourself. From the moment you make plans to go on a religious retreat you can honestly look forward to turning at least some things in your life around. Going on a religious retreat allows you to establish a pivotal time, anytime, for starting new.

How many activities do you participate in that come with a built in option to work at changing your life? Retreats don't issue a guarantee that all participants will leave the retreat center fully altered spiritually. But each retreat is heavy laden with potential for real spiritual growth and amazing changes in your relationship with God. If changing your life is what you need or want, a religious retreat might be the tool you are seeking.