Spiritual Exercises

We were really blessed that right when we came back to Sierra Leone (and after we scurried to unpack our entire house), we hosted a team from Chile.  Mr. P led our entire team (consisting of 14 people right now including children) and some local ministry partners through a spiritual retreat.  We started going through a book called The Exercises Volume II: Invitations by Brian Rice.  It is based off the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola… a Jesuit priest.  All the Jesuit priest wanna-be’s had to go through Ignatius’ spiritual exercises before being accepted into the priesthood.  While Jesuits are a Catholic group, the exercises are great for any Believer to go through as they seek to know and love God more intimately and to do His will and Kingdom Work more entirely. 

Our team has really seen the fruits in the past month of these exercises.  Small accountability/sharing groups have sprung up within our team where there was none.  Personally, my relationship with God has grown toward more of an experiential knowledge of Christ and his love while I admit that prior to this, my relationship with God consisted as more of a “head” knowledge.  

According to Ignatius, the purpose of his Spiritual Exercises is “conquest of self and the regulation of one’s life in such a way that no decision is made under the influence of any inordinate attachment.”  I had to look up the definition for inordinate and found that to mean “excessive.”  When I first started these exercises, I did find I had some ‘inordinate attachments’ in my life.  Things I wanted and that I planned for that may be against the will of God for me but I wanted anyways or would push to get whether He said okay or not.  

Here are some more principles of Ignatius that we have been working through in order that we might be free from such attachments:

1.     Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.

2.     The other things on the face of the earth are created for man, to help in attaining the end for which he is created.

3.     Hence man is to make use of them in as far as they help him in the attainment of his end, and he mus rid himself of them in as far as they prove a hindrance to him.

4.     Therefore, we must make ourselves indifferent to all created things as far as we are allowed free choice are not under any prohibition

5.     Consequently, as far as we are concerned, we should not prefer health to sickness, riches to poverty, honor to dishonor, a long life to a short life.  The same goes for all other things.

6.     Our one desire and choice should be what is more conducive to the end for which we are created

Ummm… can we say these things are hard and seem utterly impossible?  These were the first thoughts that ran through my mind… “How could I ever not prefer health over sickness, and if not for me, for my family?” It has been really good to go through these exercises and work through these questions with God and most likely will be something I will have to go through many times in my walk with God.  

I would truly recommend this book to anyone who feels slightly distant in their relationship with God and would like to go deeper.  It is a little painful as you let go of your wants and desires, but oh so freeing and rewarding as you live a life in closer communion with God.  John and I did read another book (The Exercises Volume I) that prepares you to go through the 2^nd book but it’s not entirely necessary.

And here is a picture of Aden from this morning before breakfast when he brought me my camera to take a picture!