The Bible doesn’t mention making New Year’s resolutions, but it teaches to examine oneself regularly, and by faith, to seek God’s direction to become a better person, a worthwhile overall resolution. Lamentations 3:40 in part says, “Let us examine our ways and test them, and let us return to God.” The deeper life; not only the surface.
And this is what some of us, not all of us do as a healthy habit. We get an exam. I just hope your exam isn’t like this:
A fellow was hitting the ski slopes when a bizarre accident occurred. While he was fumbling his way off a chair lift, another chair hit him from behind and knocked him out cold. He woke up with a headache, in a hospital bed and immediately called his insurance company.
After explaining what happened the insurance rep said, “We’re covering nothing on this claim. You hit yourself in the head with a chair on a ski lift. You’re an idiot. And that’s a pre-existing condition.”
What if this year we decided, you and I are going to take care of ourselves?
And start with soul care? And we are going to get rid of any pre-existing conditions?!
TAKE A DEEP BREATH
Most of us find ourselves trying harder and doing more and there is this emptiness underneath it all that no amount of activity, Christian or otherwise, can fill. What if it isn’t more that will satisfy but less?
Sometimes don’t you wish that you could take another vacation today but this time be refreshed and re-born?
What if Jesus really meant what he said, “I promise you life and that life will be abundant?”
Does abundance mean more activity, more stuff, more work, more, more, more or something better? Maybe Less with more good, hopeful and refreshing?
My goal and hope in these three messages is to do just that – refreshment and rebirth. Not that we’ll accomplish this in some brief moments together but at least help us to think about it and make some serious efforts.
And journey towards soul care.
What is soul care?
- Authentic relationships where in trusting relationships we find solace and hope.
- My best soul care has been in relationship with someone who will listen first and comment later, IF necessary. That style frees me up to think and even hear what I have to say. Sometimes I surprise myself! What about you?
- Authentic is then the key descriptive.
- A place where we can become
- A place where together there are grounds for discussion
- In a practice of reflection that is both satisfying in style and refreshing in outcome for your desire for real life.
- That can be many different ways depending on our personalities.
- Woman at the well in John 4 where the discussion is back and forth and where Jesus reveals to her that he is indeed the Messiah. Vs. 26
- Nicodemus, the Pharisee who comes in the middle of night to Jesus away from everyone and discusses who Jesus is and leaves to think some more.
- In John 8 in a life and death situation another refreshing conversation takes place between Jesus and the woman caught in adultery. She leaves refreshed … ALIVE … and forgiven.
- That can be many different ways depending on our personalities.
So soul care is the ability to have reflection that is refreshing in the outcome and by refreshing I mean life giving.
- De-cluttering our stuff in life for order and transformation.
- It is asking the right questions for the right direction.
John Wesley
Wesley used questions like:
- Am I consciously or unconsciously creating the impression that I am better than I really am? In other words, am I a hypocrite?
- Do I confidentially pass on to others what has been said to me in confidence?
- Can I be trusted?
- Am I a slave to dress, friends, work or habits?
- Am I self-conscious, self-pitying, or self-justifying?
- Did the Bible live in me today?
- Do I give the Bible time to speak to me every day?
- Am I enjoying prayer?
- When did I last speak to someone else of my faith? [ conversation starter questions ]
- Do I pray about the money I spend?
- Do I get to bed on time and get up on time?
- Do I disobey God in anything?
- Do I insist upon doing something about which my conscience is uneasy?
- Am I defeated in any part of my life?
- Am I jealous, impure, critical, irritable, touchy or distrustful?
- How do I spend my spare time?
- Am I proud?
- Do I thank God that I am not as other people, especially as the Pharisees who despised the publican?
- Is there anyone whom I fear, dislike, disown, criticize, hold a resentment toward or disregard? If so, what am I doing about it?
- Do I grumble or complain constantly?
- Is Christ real to me?
What if 2011 our small groups, UMW circles, youth asked these questions at least 3-4 times a year? What if we sought authenticity, rebirth of that promised abundant life and it was done in community?
Hebrews 12:1,2
Hebrews 12:1,2 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, 2looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.
Check and examine if an attitude; an action is clinging on your soul
- Run in your life; your lot as you can determine Jesus calls
- Goal is to sit with God!
“Our soul is like an inner stream of water, which gives strength, direction, and harmony to every other element of our life. When that stream is as it should be, we are constantly refreshed and exuberant in all we do, because our soul itself is profusely rooted in the vastness of God and his kingdom, including nature; and all else within us is enlivened and directed by that stream.”
~ Dallas Willard, author of Renovation of the Heart
Sound promising?
Something you need?
What would the results of soul care look like?
St. Francis wrote this prayer and I think it gives us an idea of a life dedicated to soul care may become…
Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace; (Source in us)
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon; (Pts to a lifestyle of character
where there is doubt, faith; dependence on Christ’s Spirit
where there is despair, hope; living the Great Commandment
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is dying that we are born to eternal life. (Phil 2)
Saint Francis
As I focus on this prayer, not saying that St. Francis was perfect but to be a saint you gotta seeking to be in love with God and your neighbor.
What life do you see here in this prayer?
A transformed life in relation to a Christian is someone who makes believing in God easy; where you and I are that someone whose life reflects the faith, hope and love of God.
Soul Care begins in knowing that we are loved which frees us up to follow the Christ.
Most of us are familiar with Maslow hierarchy of needs.
Needs at the bottom of the pyramid are basic physical requirements including the need for food, water, sleep and warmth. Once these lower-level needs have been met, people can move on to the next level of needs, which are for safety and security.
There are five different levels in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:
Physiological Needs
These include the most basic needs that are vital to survival, such as the need for water, air, food and sleep. Maslow believed that these needs are the most basic and instinctive needs in the hierarchy because all needs become secondary until these physiological needs are met.
Security Needs
These include needs for safety and security. Security needs are important for survival, but they are not as demanding as the physiological needs. Examples of security needs include a desire for steady employment, health insurance, safe neighborhoods and shelter from the environment.
Social Needs
These include needs for belonging, love and affection. Maslow considered these needs to be less basic than physiological and security needs. Relationships such as friendships, romantic attachments and families help fulfill this need for companionship and acceptance, as does involvement in social, community or religious groups.
Esteem Needs
After the first three needs have been satisfied, esteem needs becomes increasingly important. These include the need for things that reflect on self-esteem, personal worth, social recognition and accomplishment.
Self-actualizing Needs
This is the highest level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Self-actualizing people are self-aware, concerned with personal growth, less concerned with the opinions of others and interested fulfilling their potential.
While all true there is a core truth that can come to anyone anytime – the truth of God’s abundant love. This is the core of St. Francis’ prayer, “Thy Peace” and our dying to self and being alive to Christ. As Maslow shows we become because we rest in security and this is what Psalm 139 is all about.
Follow along with me in Psalm 139
1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down,
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
O Lord, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
I come to the end—I am still with you.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
24 See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
When we consider soul care, it isn’t about us only as believers, as Christians, it is all about living within the love of God.
We take care of ourselves because God loves us and knows us.
We know this is true for Jews and Christians, truth matters infinitely and ultimately because it’s a question of the trustworthiness of God himself. He is true, he acts truly, he speaks truly. Our human “truth seeking,” our soul care is therefore underwritten by the truthfulness of the creator of the universe. Truth transcends us. As we follow it, it leads us on, back, and up to one who is true.[1]
That is what 23 and 24 are about.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
24 See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
The goal of the Father is leading each of is from our backgrounds, our experiences, our problems, our successes, our failures, our hopes to the way everlasting.
That “way everlasting” is that way that leads from pain and death.
The way everlasting is that way of life that leads to joy instead of misery.
If that is your prayer I have good news!
God will answer! And is answering.
Soul care is that testing and knowing your heart and mind. It is understanding why I do what I do and why I struggle so. And having the God permission to do an exam of myself. To take the time for soul care.
What if this year you set yourself to understanding yourself and freeing yourself to be who God already knows you can be?
Soul care then is realizing that God has an infinitely higher view of you than you do of yourself.
It is a motivator of soul care.
This isn’t to be confused with expectations.
Expectations are placed on us by others or even ourselves.
- An expectation to make an “A” on a test.
- An expectation to provide money for a cause.
- An expectation to be on time.
No God’s view of you is precious.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
How do you see God?
I see God as being pure and holy, good and marvelous, joyful and who in love as never had an evil thought nor intent about me or you.
Have you thought evil of yourself? God has never thought evil towards you and never will.
Have you ever thought unholy, impure thoughts of yourself? God has never done so, nor ever will.
God never has.
And the first step of soul care is grasping this wonder of God’s care for your soul.
It is to rest in the character of God.
And then Soul care is you in relation with God and others with the goal to discover God’s thoughts for you and what that means.
Oh the wonder of Psalm 139 as it tells us that God has hemmed you in behind and before (5) and that is a welcomed truth! It feels like Maslow’s response that we need safety and security to be able to press on and God has provided it.
Sometimes we may feel that having someone know us this well is like hemming us in! But in a negative way – how can I ever be me?
But as we experience what our hearts have longed – to have someone know everything about us and love us anyway- that love becomes a safe harbor within which I am able to know and be known.
Soul care this year is because God cares for YOU.
Let’s Do It Well Again!
[1] Guinness, Os. Long Journey Home. Page 122.
