Forced, Frustrated, or Fun? Retreating with God

Retreating is a core practice for Christian mental health, especially when anxiety, depression, burnout, or emotional numbness start running the show. We’re not interested in pretending faith means you’re always fine. We want honesty, rest, and real connection with Jesus right in the middle of the mess.

We lay out a simple framework for spiritual retreat that actually matches real life: forced, frustrated, and fun. We walk through Elijah’s collapse under the broom tree and what God does first (sleep, food, water, time), plus Job’s painful invitation to grieve without rushing to explain it. If you’re in a forced retreat season, we offer practical guidance for slowing down, paying attention to your inner world, and letting God meet you there without shame.

Then we move into the frustrated retreat, using Jacob’s all-night wilderness wrestle as a picture of how anger, fear, and unmet hopes can become a holy turning point. Finally, we reclaim fun retreat as biblical, healing, and good for your nervous system, whether that’s a beach day, art, hiking, laughter, or a phone-free reset. If a full getaway isn’t possible, we share micro retreat options and resources like Lectio 365, the Bible app, and Bible Project to help you build a sustainable rhythm.

If this helps you, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s running on empty, and leave a review so more people can find honest conversations about faith and mental well-being. What kind of retreat do you need right now?

If Sunburnt Souls has helped or blessed you in any way, can I ask a small favour? Would you consider telling someone about the podcast, reposting an episode link, or bringing it up over dinner with a mate sometime? Word of mouth is how this podcast spreads. We don’t have the budget for advertising, so every share genuinely helps more people discover the conversations we’re having around faith and mental health.

🙏 IF YOU WOULD LOVE TO SUPPORT THE MISSION

Help us keep producing Christian mental health podcasts and resources that bring hope to listeners around the world and breaks the stigma in the Church. 👉 Donate to Sunburnt Souls. ALL DONATIONS OVER $2 ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE.

🧠 NEW ONLINE COURSE: Loving Life with Faith and Mental Health

A 28-day, FREE journey to help you:

• Embrace your identity in Jesus
• Build life-giving spiritual rhythms
• Navigate anxiety, depression, and burnout with honesty and grace

👉 Start your 28-day journey today

📩 JOIN OUR COMMUNITY

Get weekly encouragement, bonus podcast clips, and faith-informed mental health resources in your inbox. 👉 Subscribe to the newsletter

⭐ LEAVE A REVIEW

Love this episode? Your review helps others discover faith-based mental health resources and find hope for their journey.

• Listen and Rate on Apple Podcasts
• Listen & Rate on Spotify

Sunburnt Souls is produced by Pretty Podcasts — a Christian mental health production where faith meets real life through stories ...

Transcript

Welcome And Why Retreat Matters

Dave Quak 0:00

Well, welcome to Sunburn Souls. On this show we speak about life and faith in our mental well-being. And this week you are lucky to be encountering a refreshed Dave. If you didn't know, I'd been on holidays for six weeks. I took some long service leave and nicked overseas the first couple of weeks with my daughter, and then for the rest by myself, which was awesome. And then just today we got back from church camp, which was a time of refreshing. Actually, that was the title of our camp or the theme of our camp was to be refreshed. And as someone who walks with some mental health, you know, complexities, finding refreshment through retreat isn't something that always has come naturally to me, but I think it's something that's super vital if you're walking with, you know, your mental health in the light of Jesus. If you are a Christian and you have mental health issues, it's just as vital for you to be connecting with Jesus as it is for anybody else. And maybe even more vital because in the place of connection with God and in the place of love with God, and in that time where we really come to draw near to him as he draws near to us, some of the more complicated parts of our life seem a little bit more manageable because Jesus is in amongst them. I'm not saying it'll all, you know, magically just disappear, but I think that bringing Jesus into our conditions, bringing Jesus into our complexities, just not doing that stupid thing where people are like, all right, come into church and leave your baggage at the door and let's worship God. Nah, bring your baggage in, bring it before God and see what might happen if you are raw and honest and real before Him. And you know, you might be surprised how much He wants to help you in your situation.

Three Retreats: Forced Frustrated Fun

Dave Quak 1:42

So, like I said, I've been on retreat, and today we're gonna talk about retreats. We're gonna talk about what it means to take some time, you know, aside to retreat and be with God and retreat and attend to your soul and actually just stop and rest and delight and worship, just sit in the presence of God. You know, and and depending on the season you're in, will be kind of like the framework or the overarching theme as to why you might want to retreat. I think when you look in the Bible and I think practic you know, practically in everyday life, we will retreat for three different reasons. We'll retreat because it is forced, we'll retreat because we're frustrated, and we'll retreat for fun. I think they're the three types of retreats. There's the forced, the frustrated, and the fun. And we're gonna look through them this morning, and hopefully you will retreat, and not you know, not one's better than the other. They're all valid forms of taking time to separate and be with God, but they'll just be contingent on what's going on in your world.

Forced Retreat Through Elijah And Job

Dave Quak 2:49

And so when we start with the forced retreat, we've got to look at Elijah. You know, Elijah is the classic case for someone who was forced into solitude. You know, sometimes we choose the retreat, and sometimes the retreat chooses us. Like Elijah was alive at a time where there was so much paganism in Israel, and he was a prophet sent to kind of like correct it, but it was like he felt so often like it was like him versus the world, one versus a million. And a lot of the times it would have definitely felt like that. And there's this time around kind of like One King's, where there's this queen called Jezebel, and she hated Elijah. And she was a worshipper of the Baals and the Asheroths, which were like the pagan deities of the time. And what happened was there was this showdown between Elijah and all of the prophets of that pagan deity. And so they're on a mountain and it's Elijah, and then 400 of these prophets of Asheroth, and basically there's this like, okay, my God versus your God kind of showdown. And so Elijah just starts taunting these people and says, you know what? You guys call down fire from heaven from your God, and I'll call down fire from heaven from my God, and we'll see which God burns up the sacrifice. That's going to be the real God. And so these Baals spend day and night crying out, cutting themselves, doing all this stuff to get attention from their God, but nothing happens because their God is impotent and their God is, you know, lifeless and doesn't have power and doesn't have authority, and so nothing happens. And in amongst all that, it's quite funny. Elijah's like, oh, maybe your God's gone for a walk, or maybe your God's on holidays, or maybe he's gone to the toilet, depending on your different translations. Anyway, it becomes Elijah's turn to call down on his God, and instead of just starting, he wets the sacrifice to make it more obvious that it's not just a pagan trick or something in order to light the fires, and then he calls down the power of God, and God explodes that altar and the fire comes down, and then Elijah ends up putting, you know, all of these prophets are bailed to death, and it's like this amazing, aggressive, crazy move of God. And then after that, you know, he's on cloud nine, like he is on top of the mountain. But that Jezebel character I mentioned earlier gets wind of it all and sends a note to him saying, you know, I'm going to have your head. And so he freaks out and runs into the bush. And he goes all the way into the bush, and then he like leaves all of his, you know, servants and stuff there and goes another day in by himself and retreats by force, like he's forced to retreat. He doesn't want to be there, and he sits under the broom tree, which is like a shade that he has, and he prays that God would end his life. God shows up, gives him water, makes him sleep, once again gives him water, lets him sleep, food as well, and then eventually Elijah gets his courage back after retreating by force, and then goes on with the mission of God. You know, it's funny when people say things like, Oh, there's no man of God in the Bible that's got depression or anxiety, but we've got the prophet of prophets praying that God would take his life. And in my opinion, that is a mental health warning. So, what does that mean for you and what does that mean for me? Well, I actually reckon what it means is if we want to pay attention to our mental well-being, every now and then we might need to be forced to retreat. Forced to slow down, you know, forced to rest. I like it in Psalm 23 where it says that the Lord says, I make you lie down in green pastures, and sometimes it feels like that. You know, sometimes we feel forced to retreat. Maybe it's like an immune system crash. I don't know if you've ever met someone who's had a burnout or an immune system crash, you know, chronic stress, illnesses, infections, all of that hits them and it takes them into their bedroom. It takes them into the hospital. It's like this force retreat. It is not pleasant, but it forces you to address some of the things in your life that you might have been pushing down that you really need to address. You know, sometimes it's like a neurological fog. I don't know if you're the same as me, but sometimes you get memory fog where you've got this like inability to concentrate and your brain is like in a protective sort of mode where it's not really absorbing any new information. That might even be like God's grace slowing you down. It might not feel like it, but it could be God's grace slowing you down. You know, you might lose your joy. You ever felt like that where you like lose joy and your hobbies don't seem fun anymore, and the things you used to be into, you're not that into them anymore. You know, sometimes the loss of joy forces us to retreat. You know, sometimes it's external, maybe there's like clinical intervention. I talk to a lot of people who get admitted to hospital but not voluntarily because it's in the mental health ward, and sometimes, you know, that clinical intervention forces the retreat. Is it how we want it to happen? Of course not, but the fact that it happens is something then we could and should redeem for the purposes of God. See, the thing is with mental well-being and mental illness issues is that a lot of the things that happen aren't ideal, but because God is good and God is a redeemer, and because He, you know, sent Jesus to be the model of restoration and resurrection, sometimes in our hardest places are the times that God restores us most completely. So if you're there, what do you do? Like what do you do if you've been bought into a place of force retreat? Honestly, sit in it. Sit in it, pay attention to your immediate retreat world, pay attention to what's going on in the spiritual realm, pay attention to your heart, you know, why are you hurt? Why are you burnt out? Why are you, you know, going through the motions you're going through, sit in it. I think one of the um the perils of Western fast iPhone society is that we're too quick to try to gallop through lessons that might only be learnt through a bit of extra time. You know, w we see a forced retreat in the Bible f because of a man called Job. There was a man called Job who literally lost everything. Like his children and his house and his finances were all wiped away, his livestock, the whole deal. And as a moment of forced retreat, he sits in the dust, in the dirt, you know, just putting ashes on his head, just like mourning and grieving and sitting in the actual retreat. Now that doesn't sound like the same as a retreat if you go into the Carumban Valley and getting your paws done and a massage, not that sort of retreat. He was forced to sit in the dust. And the crazy thing about that scenario is that Job is essentially doing exactly what he should do. He was sitting in the dirt, grieving, and just owning it. And it only came apart when his three friends, he had these three friends with him, and for a week they sat with him too, and up to that point they were doing exactly what they should do. And then after a week they started like, Oh, this is happening because you've sinned. And they started trying to put a human spin on something only God knew what he was doing, and and essentially they get rebuked at the end of the book of Job because they should have just shut up and sat there. And maybe that's like not a very eloquent application of the first point, but just shut up and sit there. Just sit in the retreat, sit in the forced, you know, space and acknowledge what's going on and then cry out to God and say, okay, what's going on here and what can I learn? Because what we learn from Elijah is that once he'd gone through the process, he was good to go again. What we learn from Job is that eventually he was restored and got twice back again. Right? It's just a matter of getting through, and that's the hard part, but you can get through. And I really pray you do. Okay, so that's the forced retreat.

Frustrated Retreat And Jacob’s Wrestle

Dave Quak 10:53

The second one is the frustrated retreat. Maybe you've gone out in the wilderness, maybe you've taken yourself on holidays, maybe you've gone for a long drive because you're frustrated and you need some space. You need to wrestle some stuff out with God, you need to retreat, you need to connect with Him, and there is zero wrong with being frustrated and having it out with God. I think it's so crazy where we're like, you know, pretend that everything is all good all the time, zippity doodah, everything's fantastic. It's just not. And I know that I probably could grow in my positivity about life, but sometimes a frustrated retreat is the best thing for us. Think about Jacob. Okay, Jacob in the Old Testament is one of my favourite characters because he's completely loose in the sense of that he's always making mistakes, he swindles people, he's a liar, he's a deceiver. His name was deceiver from birth. Imagine that. Like, you know, when we name our kids these days, you want them to be like beloved friend or, you know, elegant or dependable and big hearted or something. But his mum called him Jacob, which was the deceiver. And so over his life he was just naturally good at deceiving people. He was naturally good at just being a jerk. He excelled at it. Now, because he was a jerk and he particularly screwed over his brother Esau back a while ago, Jacob's scared because Esau's heading towards him, and he's got like four hundred men, which is a pretty good army, and Jacob didn't have that, and they were heading Jacob's way. Anyway, it's sort of in the context of this and the battle, and also his frustration around not seeing the promises of God and also trying to Jacob always tried to like force the blessing. He always tried to force God to bless him instead instead of letting God bless him. It was like he was always trying to get ahead of God. And in all of that, he goes to a frustrated retreat in a place called Jabuk where he wrestles with somebody. So the Bible says the man, but some people say it's a divine man, some people say it's God or the angel of the Lord, but it's a divine encounter, it's a divine wrestle. And during that wrestle, Jacob almost demands a blessing. It's like he's not gonna leave until the person or the deity blesses him. And so they wrestle all night, and in the morning Jacob is blessed. He's injured, yes, he walks with a limp for the rest of his life, but he's blessed, and his name is changed in that moment from Jacob to Israel. Which means his deceiving and his, you know, heel-grabbing ways were over. And from that point on he walked as a new man. And the nation of Israel was birthed through his children. I mean, we're talking about the patriarch Jacob, but like he didn't have life easy or silky smooth. I mean, things went wrong for Jacob all the time, but he had God on him, and for the rest of his days you could see that he walked in the presence of the Lord. Maybe you're in a place where you need to go like Jacob on a, you know, frustrated retreat to sort some things out with God. To figure out some of the things in your life that may not be working well. You know, go out there with an attitude of frustration for sure. But also while you're out there, be willing to be changed, be willing to wrestle with God, be willing to come out with a limp but be a new man or woman. We so rarely cut space to go and do these things that matter. Like it could literally be the difference between, you know, the trajectory you're on now that is all about maybe money and leisure and self-gratification, and you might go away and have a frustrated wrestle and become someone who loves other people and is generous and wants to live beyond yourself. I mean, these these are those fork in the road type moments. That's what we see with Jacob. And so, you know, we've looked at a forced retreat, that's the frustrated retreat. And the frustrated retreat can still be very holy and it can still be very fulfilling. You know, if anything, I think we learn through the harder times even more than we do through the good times and the easy times. I mean, being frustrated in the presence of God can be super confronting because he's just got more information than we have. But it can also be so freeing because we know he's better than we are. So can I encourage you, if you've never taken a time to go out into the wilderness and wrestle with God and get something sorted, do it. If you've got the money, book an Airbnb, get the kids babysat or whatever you've got to do, and do it. If you can't do that, go to the beach for like five hours if you can and just do it. Take some time to attend to your soul, take some time to let God actually into the places that you know you might have been withdrawing from him. You know, I said earlier that I've been on holidays, and when I was away for six weeks, I had no social media, I had very, very in minimal interaction with my phone, mainly just for Google Maps or food or whatever. And it was so freeing not to be tethered to something all day long. I could think, I could pray, I could worship for copious amounts of hours because I didn't have anywhere to be all the time. We're so busy, we're so crazy that we just don't take time to sit in the presence of God, be ministered to by God Himself, and allow the things inside to be, you know, changed and morphed and you know blessed into something else. Don't just like hear this and do nothing. Go and make an action plan right now to go and have an encounter with God. Okay, and then the last type of retreat is fun. It is holy and biblical

Fun Retreat As Holy Joy

Dave Quak 17:22

and absolutely permissible by God's standards and by God Himself to go and retreat, to go and withdraw from the world simply for the sake of fun. We need fun. If you research the effect fun has on an individual with the you know the release of endorphins and cortisol and all these other things, the laughter and everything, it's so good for us. It's actually good for us to be people of joy. It's good for us just to do things because we enjoy doing them. You know, some houses, and I grew up in one a little bit like this, were the sort of houses that poo-pooed the idea of doing something just for the sake of doing something. You know, you never really did art because on paper in the eyes of people running the household, it didn't achieve anything, it didn't bring anything to the table, it was a waste of a canvas, it was a waste of money, instead of just the pure enjoyment. Like if you get the opportunity to go and retreat with God for the sake of having fun and meeting with Him, that is what you're called to do too. Yes, you're called to serve and church and give and all of that, but you're also called to have fun. When I was away on my retreat, I went to the beach a lot. And there was a few days in a row where it was like 35 degrees Celsius. Now I love the heat. Like the cold for me is the absolute worst. If you know I was inventing hell, I'd make it cold. Like it is the last thing I want to do is be around cold. And anyway, so I was over in the in Turkey and I was laying on the beach for a good number of days in a row. And I realized after a couple of days that I just was enjoying laying there, basting like a pig on the spit, getting sunburnt, looking at the most clear beaches I've ever seen, drinking Turkish coffee, because if you use the beach lounge things, you probably know if you just buy a coffee every now and then, they let you stay there all day. And I just was like thoroughly enjoying just sitting and staring at the ocean for hours and hours and hours. And that was a retreat for me. It was a fun retreat. And there is nothing unholy about that. You know, sometimes we get opportunities to do it on a bigger scale like that was, or smaller scale, just even in your own backyard or something. Can I just encourage you that if you're feeling like, you know, you're a little bit mentally hammered at the moment, or that life isn't going well, or that you're a bit fatigued, you know, sometimes when you get fatigued about life, where it's just like life is hard and long, where the days seem to drag out, the people in your world act insane, you know, the people you look after are not listening, there's never enough money in the bank. I mean, I get there's those seasons, but whatever season you're in, can I just encourage you? Go do something fun, man. Go and have some fun. Go down like the beach is free. Go and go to the beach, chase your spouse around on the beach. I don't know, go get a puppy, go and do something fun, because it's good for you and it's good for your soul. Well, you're probably thinking, okay, what Bible verse says that, Dave? Well, I actually reckon it's a theme through the entire Bible. Like you see Miriam's dance after the Israelites were delivered from Egypt, and then you see David dance before the Ark of the Covenant. I mean, they love to dance, they were expressive people, you know. But above that, I think the actual best verse is the book of the s of Song of Songs, or Song of Solomon, if that's what you call it, because it's actually all about celebrating sex, and so like I'm not saying you need to go on like a fun retreat and just go away and have sex all the time, but if you're married, man, go go do that, that'll be good, that'll be fun for you. But it's like a celebration of the concept of sex, kind of like mirrored with a celebration of the concept of who Jesus is and his love for us, and so it's like I think it's the best interpretation of that book is that it's got that dual application. There's lots of different people who believe different stuff, but I actually think that view's there to give us like a positive view of sexuality and like reciprocity, because there's like giving and there's taking. Um, but I also think it is just to remind us that to retreat and make love is a fair and beautiful use of time. Now, for the single people in the room or anyone who's listening going, well, how does that apply to me? Well, I think because it's a call to withdraw for the sake of pleasure, it's permission for us as believers to withdraw for the sake of pure enjoyment. So don't get me wrong, I'm not saying just find someone and go and have sex with them on a retreat for a while, unless it's your wife, like I said, or your husband, like I said. But what I'm saying is that it's like it's it's another example of permission of enjoying something for the sake of enjoying it. See, even these Israelites knew that sex wasn't only there for reproducing, it was actually just there because it was intended for pleasure as well. And so we're permitted, we are called, we are like given the grace by God to go and do things and retreat and do things that are just for pleasure. I got a friend who's an artist. Now, as I said before, I didn't grow up in a household that valued art very much, but I've got a friend who goes to beaches and sets up the easel, grabs a chair, and just oil paints all day long and just paints the scape. And for him, that is like a million dollars in the bank. That is like, okay, if I could do anything today, that. Or maybe you're like a bushwalker and there is a trail that you've been itching to climb, and maybe it's down the road, or maybe it's in Argentina, but you need to get yourself to that trail because it's okay for you to spend money and invest time to do something that you just simply enjoy. You know, this is a mental well-being podcast. And if you know you're listening to this and you've got some mental health issues, like I obviously do, and I've shared enough times. Well, I need things in my life that'll improve my mental well-being and make me feel good and help me through the slumps and take me deeper in my relationship with God and all of these retreats, all three of the different ones can do that in different ways. So maybe you're forced into retreat, maybe you're frustrated into retreat, or maybe your retreat is fun. Just make sure your retreat is part of the rhythms in your life. If now's not a good time in your life to actually take a day or two away, you can start with micro retreats. You can start with little quiet times that start cultivating the habits. There's an app called Lectio 365, L-E-C-T-I-O 365. You know, five to ten minute devotions that you just listen to, and they are amazing. You probably know about the Bible app and the daily devotions they have. I think they're fantastic. My wife Jess is obsessed with the Bible project, and they've got a podcast series series that is like really powerful. I mean, I'm just saying the resources are there, the time is there if you make it, the money will become available if you want it to happen. It's really up to you to take some time to go and be in the presence of God and sort out some of the things going in at your at a soul level, the things beneath the surface, the things of your heart. So may God bless you with retreat. May He hold your hand as you walk into those places. May

Micro Retreats Resources And Blessing

Dave Quak 25:04

He provide for you financially so you can get it happening. May He be waiting there to meet with you and take you to deeper places. Let's pray. Lord, we just want to pray that in all of our worlds, whichever way we can retreat, we don't want to do it by ourselves and

Closing Prayer To Meet God

Dave Quak 25:22

simply remove ourselves from the situation and that's it. We don't want to just leave. We want to go to something. We want to go to meet with you. We want to go to encounter you. And in all of this, we just pray that we will grow in you and you'll keep drawing us to a place of deep love and affection. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.