Little Prayer Cabin

Little Prayer Cabin


I have spoken of it often and written about it as well. There is a small two bedroom cabin I often retreat to pray and soak in the scriptures to find spiritual renewal. After all these years I finally have some pictures of this place. You will be able to tell how isolated it is from hustle and bustle of life. What you will not be able to see from those pictures is the powerful presence of God in that tiny rustic cabin located far off the beaten path. Neither will those pictures be able to encapsulate the innumerable encounters I have with God and the life transformation that has ensued from those encounters.
It has been one of the great blessings of my life that the Lord has allowed me to have access to that cabin through a friend who manages the place for over a dozen years. At times I have gone inside those doors and slept for days from shear mental, spiritual, and emotional exhaustion. At other times I have spent my time reading book after book for spiritual refreshment. I have prayed hours on end seeking God’s will in different areas of ministry. I have sat before the Lord to listen to Him without feeling rushed or hurried to get to some other appointment. His voice has been sweet in that “prayer cabin” nestled among the pine trees. I have prayer walked miles around that property allowing the dust to kick up around my feet and the dust of sin and frustrations to exit my soul at the same time. I have read untold chapters of scriptures during my stays in that place. I have written several books seated at the dining room table surrounded by windows in that country cottage. It has become an old familiar home away from home. I know every inch of that place. I have a certain chair for reading. I sleep in the same bed and eat the same dining table chair.
Why has this place become so special to me? Why do enjoy my get a ways there so much? If God is omnipresent, why do I sense His presence so powerfully in that rustic wood framed house? Is that place any more holy than any other place on this planet? Or is my fondness of that place really nothing more than opportunity to meet with my Lord unhurried, with time to linger and take casual walks with Him.
When I’m in the prayer cabin it is like time stands still except for the fact that from time to time I look at my watch and am reminded how precious few hours I have left there before I have to return to reality. I can soak in God like a sponge and then when I go back home the Lord can squeeze Himself out to me to meet the ministry demands all of me.
I have two thoughts to wrap this up. First, taking these retreats is not only necessary but beneficial for the believer. How many ever take the time to do it. Jesus made this a regular habit of His life and ministry. [Luke 1:35] Early in the morning while it was still dark, He arose and went out and departed to a lonely place and was praying there. Don’t you need to depart from the throngs of people from time to time and find a lonely place where you can commune with God? That cabin has been a lonely place for me for a long long time. But the truth is I don’t get go there every day or even every month. I am fortunate to make it to that place two or three times in a year. So what do I do the rest of the time. I get up early and meet with God in the lonely place of my living room. I shut the door to my office and meet God in the lonely place of my study to linger with Him. Some times I have to depart my office and meet with Him in the lonely place of a restaurant or find a lonely dirty road to take a “prayer walk.” This habit was a regular part of Jesus’ routine. [Luke 5:16] But He Himself would often slip away to the wilderness to pray.
If Jesus made the time and had the need to “slip away” or to “depart to a lonely place” what about you and me. Life, family, work, and ministry can all do a slow drain on our souls. Those people who make slipping away and departing to a lonely place a regular part of their routines are the ones who have the most sincere and genuine faith.
My second thought is though retreating from demands of life is a great blessing and results in spiritual renewal, we can’t live forever on these retreats. This is illustrated in [Luke 9:28-41]. Jesus takes Peter, John, and James up with Him on one His prayer retreats and they actually see Christ manifested in all of His glory before them. Peter is blown away and says, “Master, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles one for You, and one for Moses, and for Elijah…”
Yet only a few verses later the scriptures tell us they came down from the mountain and were immediately met with a distraught father looking for help for his son. Going up on the mountains to retreat with God is great but the one of the purposes for doing that is to come back down from the mountain for ministry.
I love that prayer cabin more than I can put into words and I always look forward to my retreats there. The honest truth is that though I love that place I do not want to live there. My ministry is in Paradise, TX and Humboldt, Saskatchewan, Canada. I retreat to be filled so I can come back and be effective in ministry. I look forward to my next trip to the prayer cabin but I also look forward to coming back and ministering to people in the power of the Spirit.



















Chapter Eleven
Walking a Long Dirt Road


I recently found myself isolated walking down a lonely dirt road to just get away from the crowds. It was a week where I was given the privilege of preaching eight different times in one week. It was also a week where my study time was continually interrupted by something or someone at various times throughout the week. Two times my children awoke at 5:00 a.m. which distracted my normal quiet times before the Lord. It was a challenging and exhausting week and that slow deliberate prayer walk down that lonely dirt road was refreshing to my soul in ways I could never put onto paper.
To make this walk I had to deliberately leave the company of several men I love dearly who had gathered on a scenic 1,500 acre ranch for a men’s retreat. I had to make that walk alone if my soul was going to be of any benefit to them for the weekend. Those first steps were awkward spiritually as I tried to pray but could hear the conversation and laughter of the other men. Soon I turned a corner both physically as I left sight of the home we were staying in also turned a corner spiritually. As soon as I was totally alone I felt myself exhaling the pressure of a busy week and inhaling the intoxicating presence of God. I walked through a wooded area and headed for the lake. While walking along the shore line of the lake I felt my heart relax and I began to spiritually breathe in tranquility.
The refreshing presence of God on those walks cannot be measured or described with words. Our vocabularies are too restricted to speak of such experiences. Suffice it to say I know just a little of how Adam and Eve must have felt before they sinned as they walked with God in the garden. How they must have relished those walks with God in the garden. Instructions could have been given, love expressed, joy experienced, and the delight of being in perfect communion with the creator defies description. Their sin changed that. Instead of wanting to walk with God after they ate the forbidden fruit they actually began to flee from God and try to hide from His presence. [Gen 3:8-10] That is what I think we do. We don’t walk those lonely dirt roads with God because we know He knows our sin. He knows the secret parts of our lives that no-one else knows and we want to keep them hidden. We unconsciously think if we stay away from His presence we can hide our flaws, moral mishaps, and spiritual blunders from His all seeing eyes. God already knows the truth and wants us to confess the truth in our innermost beings. [Ps 51:6]
There is another story of a man who walked with God found in Genesis. Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him. [Gen 5:24] I imagine Enoch daily, sauntering down long dirt roads talking with God. The nature of those talks could have been expressions of love and adoration, confession of sin, pleas for help in impossible circumstances, and just enjoying the presence and the reality of God day in and day out. Just as Enoch enjoyed walking the Lord I believe the Lord enjoyed walking with Enoch. Daily jaunts together became Enoch’s life-long habit. God must have loved those walks far more than we can imagine because one day He just decided to take Enoch to Heaven. No death. No pain. Just eternal bliss and greater intimacy with the Father Enoch had been pursuing to know while walking with Him on those roads for years.
It is kind of like the saying a friend of mine has. He says he imagines as he walks with the Lord that one day the Lord will say to him, “Son, we’re closer to my house than to yours. Why don’t you just come home with me?” God just wanted Enoch all for himself and took Him to Heaven. Enoch is only one of two persons to experience something like that, Elijah being the other.
I want to learn what it really means to walk with God in a way that not only refreshes my life but blesses the Father as well. I want to learn to slow down long enough to meander down the dirt roads of life in delightful conversation and communion with my Father. I know when I try to hide in the bushes from God’s presence my soul shrivels and my faith fades. Some of the most meaningful spiritual experiences I have ever had included walking alone in the mountains, on the beach, out in the woods, down dusty country roads, and out in pastures. There is something very therapeutic and invigorating about walking with God.
I am under no pretenses that I am in any like Enoch. I have not learned the art of cultivating that kind of walk with the Lord. I do enjoy my walks with Him however and hope to ever be cultivating and refining my walks with Him. I encourage you to do the same. Find some isolated dusty trail or road and just go for a walk with God. Pour your soul out to Him and listen to what He has to say to you. I guarantee you will come away from that experience both refreshed and recharged for the demands of relentlessly busy.