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Ep.18 Annual Personal Retreat: The Spiritual Habit That Changed My Year
10 Plays2 days ago
💡 Episode Summary
Feeling burned out even while serving God? In this episode, Patrick Lowndes shares the one practice that transformed his entire year—the Annual Personal Retreat.
It’s not a luxury; it’s a rhythm that restores your soul and re-centers your purpose. Patrick exposes the lie that stopping means falling behind and shows how rest with God can become the most productive thing you do all year.
You’ll learn how to reflect on your life roles, listen for God’s direction, and apply seven simple practices that make your retreat powerful and practical.
🧭 7 Essentials for a Great Retreat
1️⃣ Change Your Location
A fresh setting brings a fresh mindset. A cabin, park, or quiet office can signal your heart that this time is sacred.
2️⃣ Give Something Up
Fast from one distraction—social media, news, or a comfort habit. Every no to distraction becomes a yes to presence.
3️⃣ Bring a Journal
Treat it as a dialogue, not a diary. Record prayers, questions, and promptings. Small impressions can lead to major clarity.
4️⃣ Use Structured Questions
Structure prevents drift. Ask:
• Where did I see God at work this year?
• What’s my biggest spiritual bottleneck?
• What must I stop—or start—doing?
5️⃣ Add Worship + Gratitude
Set apart time for music or silence to thank God for His faithfulness. Gratitude shifts focus from striving to receiving.
6️⃣ Remind Yourself of the Gospel
You’re not earning God’s favor; you’re resting in it. Revisit scriptures like Ephesians 2, Psalm 23, and Matthew 11:28-30.
7️⃣ Tell Three People
Share your takeaways with trusted friends. Accountability turns revelation into transformation.
🪞 Reflection Challenge
Pull out your calendar and block time for your retreat—even a half-day counts. Your next season of impact may depend on your next season of rest.
🗝️ Key Quote
“We’re often running so hard for God that we forget to stop and run with Him.”🔑 Key Takeaways
• Rest isn’t retreat from purpose—it’s where purpose is recalibrated.
• God’s voice grows clearer when your calendar grows quieter.
• The Annual Personal Retreat is a sacred leadership rhythm.
• Productivity begins with presence, not pressure.
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Transcript
Introduction to Buried Talent
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Buried Talent, the show for young professionals that tears down false beliefs about faith and work so you can unbury your God-given talent right where you are.
Personal Spiritual Retreats
00:00:10
Speaker
I'm Patrick Lowndes, and today we're talking about the spiritual habit that changed my year, the annual personal retreat.
00:00:20
Speaker
So as you might have noticed from last episode and this episode, my co-host Ken is out and he's probably just coming back online here because earlier in December last year, he ah ah brought a fifth child into the world. Well, to be clear, his wife did. He helped bring it into the world. But um his fifth child is now in the world. You're going to hear more about that when he comes back on to give his check-in.
Career and Calling Queries
00:00:44
Speaker
um But just briefly, as this is hitting the the the airways here, I'm just getting back from a conferences couple conferences and just meeting tons of people on their winter break, and just kind of their early 20s, trying to figure out what do I do with my life?
00:01:01
Speaker
What do I do with my career, my calling? And so it's so exciting to be with you here.
The Importance of Rest
00:01:06
Speaker
And today we're talking about, again, what do I do um that that rebalances and resets ah my my year every year?
00:01:16
Speaker
and And I want to just coach you a little bit on some of the ways to do this so well. um I like to think that we are often running so hard um working for, um like we would say like, oh, I'm working so hard for God.
00:01:30
Speaker
right um at the end of the day if we're like laboring and working and trying to build a god's kingdom uh there's actually a verse psalm 127 talks about um the lord gives his beloved rest but you know what's funny is right before that what happens is they who labor to build the house by themselves right without the lord build it in vain right so the false belief we're going to hit on today is stopping means i'm falling behind Okay, so I want you just to think about that.
The Annual Soul Review
00:02:03
Speaker
Stopping means I'm falling behind. And I just want you to imagine real quick, driven leaders oftentimes equate rest with you are weak
00:02:14
Speaker
right And isn't that isn't that the the unsaid ah stereotype in the world is, hey, if you need to rest, if you need to take some time off, like, yeah, you have unlimited time off at work, maybe you have you have one of those work environments. If you have unlimited time off and you just don't, don't need a whole three weeks off or two weeks off, I'm just gonna take a little bit here and there, right?
00:02:35
Speaker
We just believe that we are valued by what we can produce. right and what does that cost us emotionally you guys know some of these things like burnout uh disconnection right it costs like emotionally that i my life is more noisy because i i can't say no to to things and i have to say yes to everything right and what if wasn't rest what if that wasn't just like a vacation you look forward to once a year but it was actually more of like a rhythm right It would feel a lot more like what you had in the story of ah you know what Jesus in Roman 14 was talking about, um or it wasn't Jesus, but Paul was writing and saying, hey, ah some people Sabbath and treat one day as holy, but the new model in the new covenant is this is the way that you have you find rest in Christ throughout the week,
Setting Up a Personal Retreat
00:03:25
Speaker
throughout the day.
00:03:25
Speaker
right And so this personal retreat that we're going to talk about today, it's a little bit like your soul's annual performance review right? If you want to use some business terms led by the ultimate CEO God. However, isn't it good news that he is not a CEO to us as much as he is, he's a father.
00:03:44
Speaker
Jesus said, like, this is how we pray. This is what it looks like to commune with God. So we're going to start again by thinking about what does it look like to actually stop to actually rest and what i want to try to do is set you up with a couple of pre-categories to think about doing an annual personal retreat and then i'm going to give you seven really practical ways to work it out because i get questions about this a lot like hey patrick what does it look like to actually take a retreat so let me give you a couple of examples um of some things that are important for you to to to be able to imagine yourself in this space. And so one of the first things to do um just to set this up is you're trying to create space for reflection on the last year and space to hear God's voice and recalibrate for the future year, right?
00:04:38
Speaker
And so um the first thing that you want to think about going into this is what are the roles that I have?
Reflecting on Personal Roles
00:04:43
Speaker
right what are the things uh and these are roles you have a great way to think about that is where do i spend my time in a given week right so some of your life roles it might be i'm a student or i'm a full-time employee here it could be i'm a son or daughter or if you're um if you're married you might have a spouse or you might be in a boyfriend girlfriend relationship right what are those things or even like i'm a leader of this bible study or whatever it is. And so as you think about your roles, that can kind of naturally lead into what questions could I and should I be asking about the roles that I am trying to fulfill in my life to be faithful with. And so what's and what's important here is not that we're not trying to look for like a grade.
00:05:26
Speaker
So the reason why this is not ah like ah a performance review to to like throw that off for a second is because you're not grading yourself. And one of the things I learned from ah Mike Bickle was so on this topic of like, oh, should we grade ourselves when we go and spend time with God like this? He says, what you want to be looking at is, am I am i continually giving God each day my yes?
00:05:47
Speaker
am i Am I pausing long enough to ask for his leadership and lordship? And then am I also saying yes? What frequency am I saying yes to what he's asking me to do in those things?
Tips for a Successful Retreat
00:06:00
Speaker
right and so it's way uh some of you more analytical types might want to just analyze your last year and maybe and you might find it helpful to try to grade yourself and in in a couple different things but i think just simplistically thinking about that from lord how am i giving you my yes how am i continuing to develop uh in in these areas of life okay so here's are you ready for the seven tips here we go number one is change your location.
00:06:27
Speaker
Physically getting away from where you are is important. I've tried to do a personal retreat where I didn't get very far away and it didn't work very well. um You can just think about that for a second, but it's you got to get out of the normal rhythms, which means if you're going to go hang out at a friend's house or someone else, like if they're doing their normal rhythms and you're like just kind of hanging out in the living room and other people are milling about having normal talk,
00:06:50
Speaker
that's also not a good space to be. You really want to get to a spot where there's some genuine quiet. And if that means you have to plan for this, usually I like to do two nights somewhere. um And it's important to create a space where it's not just sitting in ah in a dark room by yourself, but sometimes there's some places to get outside. If that means you got to pack a bunch of warm clothes, for me, it's January or February. I'm totally packing winter clothes. And and so think about like,
00:07:15
Speaker
you know, a borrowed office, like an outbuilding or a cabin, or I've stayed in a yurt before, like all sorts of options that you can think about. But that's number one is change the location.
00:07:26
Speaker
Number two, give something up. Now, i when I first learned this discipline, this is almost... Oh, 19 years ago this year, it probably be next year will be 20 years. So 19 years ago, I learned how to do this rhythm for the first time. And it was the first time that someone ever showed me the importance of fasting.
00:07:47
Speaker
And so I would encourage you not, yes, yes, you will also probably decide to fast from like, you know, looking at your phone and not look at apps and things like that. So that's certainly a good thing, but I would challenge you to sacrifice something and physically where you have to give up. Now, some of you are like, hey, I can't full do a full food fast where you're just doing water. um But I just encourage you, if you can do that, um do a little bit of research, kind of prepare yourself for that. But the idea is you're drinking water. And if you have to do like, again, you know ah you know more of a liquid fast where you're drinking more of like protein shakes or other stuff to kind of keep you going, you can. But think about not how to preserve comfort.
00:08:27
Speaker
Think more about, God, how do i create hunger in myself? and that during this time, I will be i willll be reminded of my need. my my Just as my body is craving and crying out for nourishment, it's a reminder that my soul needs God. I need him.
00:08:47
Speaker
right And if you haven't ever been in that spot where you're letting you're the the hunger pains of your body ah connect with the the hunger pains of your soul, It's like you guys are missing out if you haven't if you don't have a rhythm of doing this in some regular basis. But for me, this is like the longer fast. It's usually like two, sometimes two and a half days if I can make it that long. But if I'm honest, there are years when it's really hard and I don't actually make it all the way or I have to supplement with some other stuff along the way.
00:09:15
Speaker
This is not about a performance-based thing, but just think about giving something up. And I'd encourage you to consider a water fast
Guided Reflection Techniques
00:09:21
Speaker
if you can. and All right, number three, bring a journal to process.
00:09:26
Speaker
Okay. Some of you are already good at like every now and then you're writing a journal and not necessarily every day, but like couple times a month, you're opening that journal up. I use my journal for big questions um that I'm bringing up throughout the year, like usually decisions, or maybe if there's a big relational thing that happened, I go there I'm like Lord, what is going on with this?
00:09:44
Speaker
It's my way of trying to hear a dialogue with God. Some of you, i could ask you if I was in if i was in a rough classroom, I'd say, how many of you are like external processors? And usually get a a bunch of people with their hand up. a journal is a great place to externally process with your pen and then have your pen like open and ready to write and then literally just sit there and listen god what would you say right we sometimes if we try to do this without a journal without a pen it's i don't know about you but it's hard to kind of stay focused i get distracted a lot
00:10:18
Speaker
And so I would encourage you use this. And sometimes you have to re-engage the question, re re-write the question and then sit back. But that journal is super helpful to process big questions before God. And here's what you're gonna do in that journal, which is number four. This is ah my fourth tip for you is have a structured set of questions or content to keep you focused for that one day or two days or if it's two and a half days, whatever time you can carve out. Some people, I've done this before where I try to read through like the book of John or the book of Ephesians, and I just try to go really slowly through it and meditate and maybe just immersing myself in ah in a section of scripture or trying to memorize a whole chapter of scripture or something. Those are ways to kind of set a so a structured set of content The other thing is i really like to spend the first half of my time. So usually it's like my first day, just inventorying all the areas of my life, the roles of my life and saying, God, what do you think about all these different areas of my life?
Recalibrating Life Mission
00:11:21
Speaker
and i like to say like where did i see you working in my job this last year and like notice that about him or where did you see me um growing in this in this part of my relationship um the other thing that's really helpful is god what did you see in my relationship with so-and-so or in my involvement in this thing what did you see there that did not please you that just wasn't Like if I could go back and do it again, you would say, do it differently.
00:11:48
Speaker
And hear the Holy Spirit's voice on that. um That's also a moment where you can look at it. Two more things I'll just call out is is if you, we we talk a lot about having a marketplace calling. So if you have a life mission statement or a marketplace mission statement or calling,
00:12:05
Speaker
I would challenge you, this is your moment to clarify that if you've never come up with one for for one. But if you already have this personal annual retreat is where you can go in and just recalibrate and say, God, has has this changed? Has this shifted? Like a lot's happened. It's been a whole year since since we've really gone deep on this. What is change that I need to maybe adjust? Would you, Lord, help me adjust this? Is there something else you want me to focus on? And tied in with that, many times when I think about where I'm headed for the next year, as I'm looking into the next year, I also ask um not only for like things that God wants me to to to improve on and work on in these areas, but I also say, Lord, is there a general theme or a filter even something that's supposed to guide me for this next year i've heard some people say a personal word for the year a theme for the year but i've used that where it's like if i don't even know any other filter to use mid like it's now april or may i'm like oh yeah well god just told me a couple months ago like for me that in 2025 it was start small that was that was the word for 2025 i'm like what that is if you know me i'm pretty entrepreneurial i think big i'm like big big big and he's like small i'm like oh
00:13:16
Speaker
ah So for me, it's been a a year of like, oh yeah, he said start small. Okay, what does that look like? Being faithful in the little things. There's so many verses like that. So think for what is that personal theme? So number four, it's a lot like come with a bit of a game plan before you
Enhancing Retreat Experience
00:13:31
Speaker
go. It'll help make your time more productive. Now, as you're going through scripture, you're studying, like it's a lot of focused attention. You might start to get a little fatigued. And so a part of the way to mix it up when you've got a whole day or two days with with the Lord is mixing in lots of music, um mixing in, you might mix in, um, as part of your content, some sermons as well.
00:13:54
Speaker
But I like music as as a key part of that. I do play the guitar. So I usually bring my guitar and i'm sometimes even recording new songs that God's giving me. But um but there's also just, if there's a, um sometimes you can find like a whole worship set, like for 60 minutes on YouTube or something like that. And you're like, I want to do the whole set.
00:14:12
Speaker
um And that's that's a great time to just bring the band right there to your laptop or to your phone and just connect with God. This is your time to to give God your thanks and to and to so and to just enjoy his presence. right i mean So many times we are like we we get on these these sort of retreats and and we're sort of like so focused on productivity and faithfulness that we just we miss enjoying his presence.
00:14:41
Speaker
right and that's that's the time to do it right when you're when you're saying god i'm hungry for you i want your presence so mix in music time to thank god and if sometimes that might lead towards like here's a topic you need to get an an input from somebody else on then you can maybe you know bring that that's a sermon to you or or to the person that maybe you heard earlier in the year he wants you to listen to it again something like that that's number five number six This is so important.
00:15:08
Speaker
I hope you're hearing
Sharing and Accountability
00:15:09
Speaker
me on this one. Remind yourself of the gospel and the hope that you have in it. I mean, this retreat is not about earning God's favor. it's It's not about you coming away with, i like we said, like with a performance review and a grade, a checklist. like It's about resting in what's true, the favor that you already have in Christ.
00:15:34
Speaker
And if you walk away and you are like more motivated to work for God and not with him, and you're trying to earn his favor by doing the things that sound christian that sound like it's helpful to his kingdom but he's like hey you are missing out i mean think about what jesus said like um rejoice not that you're seeing the signs and wonders but that your name is written in the lamb's book of life He's telling even his own disciples, did you just like, can you just rest for a second in who I am and what I've done for you? Can you rest in in what God has given you and in that he's's he's welcomed you into his family, right? And so we need to pause and remember the gospel and speak it to ourselves and even ask, Lord, where where am I not really believing the gospel?
00:16:18
Speaker
That's usually a point of almost any sin or or things that he's calling out on you is like there's usually a point of the gospel and and something about him that's true about God that you're not actually believing. And so I've heard one person say Jeff Vanderstelt said ah making disciples is actually moving from unbelief to belief in every area of your life, believing in the gospel in every area of your life, that it's true, that it applies everywhere. So if you've done this, you've had a pretty intense time. ah you you For me, like I actually go and do hikes. i actually I do some things physically to kind of move around, do a little bit of physical exertion. I don't actually like work out. or I've known a couple guys that do, but I don't work out. But I do move around on these retreats to kind of keep the blood moving, keep my energy up. And so if you get tired or sleepy, that will be ah a thing. Go and just get active if you can.
00:17:06
Speaker
um and And then I usually like to break ah the fast with taking communion. And at the end, the seventh thing I'll give you, seventh a key is tell three people about the highlights, trusted people usually, tell about the highlights of the retreat. Here's some the stuff that stood out to me.
00:17:22
Speaker
And also invite accountability with those people. Right. So go to people and say, hey here's some things the Lord highlighted. You need to know my word, my theme for the year, because you're going to see if I'm if I'm doing things that are against that word.
00:17:36
Speaker
You're going to see if I'm doing things that that malign the name of Christ, so to speak, ah you know, in in the area I just told you, I need to get better at this. If you see me not doing that. think about what could those ah those accountability triggers be. And we just talked about that actually at the last episode of last year about scattershot development. The last one was we talked about accountability, right? And and if you don know if you don't have a structured way to get that accountability, um you you should find that in in a variety different groups. We have some programs that help out with that as well.
00:18:07
Speaker
So in conclusion, um this is so important to take time away at least once a year. I know some people that do this quarterly or twice a year. um i know some people that regularly try to do this with their spouse. And so for me, I've done i've done this with Bethany, and my wife, um a few times. And it's a little harder when you've got lots of kids to get away and childcare and stuff. But if you can make some of that happen too, I've heard really great times that you can do that with your spouse if you're if you are listening and you're married. So I would challenge you right now, if you've never done this before, pull out your calendar, like look ahead of the next month or two. I mean, we're just getting started in 2026. Look at the next year or two. I usually try a month or two. I try to do it in January, but sometimes like this January, it's not quite going to fit. So it's going to be in February. But think about what does that look like for you? And I like to start thinking about that every year, usually in November, before the holidays really kick in. So I try to plan that.
00:19:05
Speaker
And so I encourage you, exhort you, think about how you can go and get away with God. Might only be a day to start, maybe just a Saturday morning, and you fast for the day and you really spend some time with God.
00:19:18
Speaker
But I want to keep diving deeper into this topic with you. and we're going to talk more about journaling in future episodes. So stay tuned on this podcast and we'll talk with you very shortly. I'll see you in the community. And thanks for listening to Buried Talent.