July 18, 2025

Retreats. I love to get away. There’s just something special about packing a bag and leaving home for a bit breaking from the normal routine and comforts and escaping to a new place for a focused time. When I was a Student Pastor leading teenagers on retreats became a regular rhythm for our ministry calendar. I loved it! We’d not only participate in the summer retreats of camp experiences or week-long conferences, but we’d also take the students on shorter weekend retreats to various places in the fall, winter, and spring. It’s not that there was really anything special about the environment. We’d be in hotels, churches, conference centers, camps, and cabins. The content of those times of retreat varied as often as the locations did. You see, this special time wasn’t so much about WHERE we went or WHAT we did but it was more about WHY we went in the first place. We went to do just that: Retreat.  

I’ve always been fascinated by a piece of Scripture that still, to this day, remains somewhat mysterious to me. In Matthew 4 we are introduced to Jesus’s public ministry beginnings. Just after his baptism he is led by the Spirit into the wilderness.  

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. ²After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. -Matthew 4:1-2 

We read on that Jesus was tempted by the devil during this time. I’ve always wondered what else happened during those 40 days. A 40-day retreat from his regular life was not a brief amount of time. What was he doing all that time? He clearly spent lots of time of solitude with his Father. What was he saying? What did he think about? Was he hiking, swimming, napping, talking out loud to himself? Singing with wild animals? (No, wait. That’s Snow White. Sorry). I’m fascinated by the possibilities.  

But Jesus didn’t start and stop with this 40-day retreat in Matthew 4. We read on throughout the Gospels that this was a regular practice in his life.  

¹⁵Yet the news about him spread all the more, so that crowds of people came to hear him and to be healed of their sicknesses. ¹⁶But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. -Luke 5:16-17 

¹³When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. -Matthew 14:13 

If you take a closer look, the number of passages in the Gospels where Jesus withdraws (to the wilderness, to a lonely place, to a solitary place, to pray) is quite surprising.  

Rich Villodas in his book, A Deeply Formed Life, recognizes this… 

“Alone and in the setting of the desert, Jesus encountered Satan and refused to be identified by anything other than the affirmation of the Father… It was after this grueling battle that Jesus returned to civilization and recited, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me” (Luke 4:18). Over and over in the Gospels, Jesus conveys the power of God, and then he returns to be in communion with God from whom that power flows.” 

Jesus practiced the constant rhythm of Retreat and Return. He knew the power of getting away (out of his normal rhythms, away from his everyday context) retreating to a place where he was focused on his Father. He leaned on those times and places of retreat because he knew the energy that was needed to do the ministry God called him to do. Jesus was like any of us. The relationships, the crowds, and the daily demands were tiring. Certainly, he was able to pray, fast, and be spiritually filled in other ways with his disciples in the day-to-day activity of life. However, he had to make times for withdraw to get filled up, re-energized, rest, and empowered by his Father.  

No wonder why I and many of us in student ministry were so filled by those times we took away. There is simply something tremendously powerful about retreating so that we can return to the day-to-day equipped, rejuvenated, and ready for our deployment onto God’s mission. It’s truly life changing.  

Rich Villodas says this, “Unless we live with an intentional commitment to slow down, we have no hope for a quality of life that allows Jesus to form us into his image.” 

I encourage you to consider what patterns of Retreat and Return you can build into your daily, weekly, monthly, and even annual rhythms. Start small. Or take what you have and challenge yourself to more. We need it more than we know. We’ll meet God and experience his power there.  

With you, 

Nathan 

Nathan Hinkle

Lead Pastor

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