Reflections After Reading the Book Soul Keeping

The ‘Rona finally got me! I am currently quarantining after testing positive for COVID yesterday. With this “forced” rest, I finished a book called “Soul Keeping,” by John Ortberg. It came heavily recommended by a great friend. I think he’d been encouraging me to read it for over a year. I finally started it a few weeks ago and took a lot of notes along the way. There’s a lot of meat on the bone, so I’m taking my time to digest all the notes. It’s now ranked in my top-3 of most insightful and influential books I’ve read.

I’m taking my time on bed rest today to outline the salient points from the book. Hopefully, you’ll find Ortberg’s insights as helpful as I have. If you’re familiar with a book that was very popular last year called “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry,” by John Mark Comer, you would likely appreciate Soul Keeping. Interestingly, both John Mark Comer and John Ortberg were mentored by Dallas Willard, who taught them both the importance of taking care of one’s soul.

What is the Soul?

“Let the Lord Jesus but enter your souls, and you shall find peace which the world can neither give nor take away.”
George Whitfield

The soul is the spiritual part of a person. The whole person includes the mind/will, body, heart, and soul. The soul is made by God, for God, and can only find its satisfaction and strength in God. It’s the “life” that God breathes into our bodies (think back to Genesis). The soul has great depth, so it has the ability to behold deep things. The soul is analogous to computer software, where the body, mind/will are the hardware. The soul is like an operating system. It integrates all parts of the whole person. As people, we are spiritual beings in a physical shell. The soul is made to live forever.

What Does the Soul Need?

It’s the nature of the soul to be “needy.” It’s built to need God for strength and health. When we discern our soul’s neediness, it’s supposed to point us or “drive” us to God. Attempting to meet our soul’s needs with the wrong things harms our soul. Whenever we sin, the action causes a “disintegration” of our souls with the rest of us. When we do something that goes against our conscience or something that we know is wrong, it causes harm to our souls. In order to stay healthy, our souls need to be centered and find their identity, satisfaction, and security in God alone.

“As a deer pants for flowing streams, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”
Psalm 42:1-2

“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.”
John 4:13-14 (Jesus speaking to the woman at the well).

What’s Good for the Soul?

Abiding in God – Prayer and Worship
Good Human Relationships
Prioritizing Rest/Avoiding “Hurry” and “Rush”
Confession of Sin
Enjoying Nature
Beholding Non-Superficial Things That Have Depth (Good Books, Poetry, and Music)

What Harms the Soul?

Unrepentant Sin or Being Sinned Against.
Superficiality and Trivial Things (i.e., Binging on Social Media, Netflix, etc.).
Looking Upon Things That Are Evil.
Constant Hurry
Prayerlessness
Allowing Disappointment, Resentment, and Bitterness to Take Residence in Our Hearts and Minds.
Ingratitude or Feeling Entitled. Self-Pity.
Constantly Seeking After Things (Buying/Selling Possessions, Clothes, Food, Storing Up Wealth, etc.).
Escapism (Drugs, Alcohol, Pornography, Excessive Video Gameplay, etc.).

How Can We Tend to Our Souls?

Most of the focus in our culture is on the external. This includes the body (eating healthy/exercising), the mind (education), what possessions we have, what we do for a job, what clothes we wear, what people think about us, etc. These things tend to “clutter” our souls. Therefore, our souls are often neglected. Neglecting our souls for months, years, or decades will catch up with us. This is often when people experience burnout.

The first question to ask when thinking about how we can better tend to our souls is, “what person am I becoming currently?” What’s important is not what we do or what we have or what we achieve but who we’re “becoming.” What’s the trajectory of our life? Who and what we’re becoming can change from moment to moment. Whenever you lie, that can often lead to another lie, so over time, in a sense, you’re becoming a liar or a person that lacks integrity. If you’re constantly busy and your life is always hurried, you’re becoming a frantic, anxious, overly pragmatic person (think back to the story of Martha and Mary). You’re becoming a “Martha.”

“Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.”
Francis Chan

In other words, we can be like Mary and choose the better portion. Namely, Jesus. Or, we can be like Martha, choosing the lesser portion(s). Choosing the lesser portion consistently over time damages our souls. Why might we choose the lesser portion instead of the better one? It depends on our internal belief system. We might choose the lesser portion if we believed it would somehow be the better portion (this is the deceit of sin). These are some of the things that choke-out God.

“And others (seeds) are the ones sown among thorns. They are those who hear the word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it proves unfruitful.”
Mark 4:18-19

The opposite of soul acceptance (from God) is soul fatigue. When we don’t sleep well and keep drinking caffeine day after day and just keep running wide open, we set ourselves up for soul fatigue. Soul fatigue happens when you keep driving with the check engine light blinking and you never stop. It doesn’t have the same signs as physical fatigue and the soul unfortunately doesn’t come with a gauge.

Signs of Soul Fatigue

What is bothering you more than it should? Have you noticed yourself having less self-control? Do you favor short term gains that leave you with higher, long-term costs? Has your judgement been suffering, or have you been acting cowardly?

Prolonged soul fatigue causes the following:

Damages the relationships with people in our lives.
If you’re married, you and your spouse begin fighting over trivial stuff.
Nothing left in your tank to overlook your loved ones’ annoying habits.
Easily irritated.
No energy left for relationship with God or people.

Signs of Mind Fatigue

Mind fatigue is different from soul fatigue because it’s physical. It’s more “external.” It’s caused by constantly keeping a list of mental errands that need to be completed and being bombarded with info all day (i.e., at work, via news and social media, etc.). Mental fatigue can also contribute to soul fatigue.

Will Fatigue

Like mind fatigue, will fatigue is more physical in nature. This is caused by having to make hundreds or thousands of important (and unimportant) decisions throughout the day. It comes from the feeling of a “need” to make decisions. Namely, what to wear, what people think about us, what we’re going to buy or sell, what we’re going to do as a career, what degree we’re going to get, etc.). Many business owners experience will fatigue because they’re constantly bombarded with decisions that “need” to be made.

Ego Depletion

When our egos are depleted, we tend to be more negative and become “extra sad” when we watch a sad movie. We find it easy to see the bad in everything and often feel hopeless. We find a way to spin everything in a negative way.

What Did Jesus Do to Keep His Soul Healthy?

The soul craves rest and only knows “borrowed” strength. Jesus kept his soul healthy by constantly abiding in the Father. The Father provided sustenance for him. Jesus regularly engaged in prayer throughout the day, had twelve friends he went through life with, studied the scriptures, enjoyed his Father’s creation, and even enjoyed partying with non-religious types (note: not in a sinful way). Some questions we can ask ourselves:

What practices connect me with God’s joy, energy, and peace?
What are my sustaining practices? Do I want to explore some new ones?

Jesus is the Vine and we are the branches. We must abide in him if we expect our souls to stay healthy and maintain their strength.

The Difference Between Being Busy and Being Hurried

There’s a difference between busyness (external) and hurry (internal). Being hurried is an inner condition. A condition of the soul. Busyness migrates to hurry when we squeeze God out of our lives.

Busy = Full Schedule
Hurry = Preoccupied, unable to be “present.” Unavailable to God.

When you’re hurried, you cannot rest in God. You start worrying about tomorrow, instead of letting tomorrow worry about itself. Jesus would often intentionally slow his followers down, so their souls wouldn’t be so fatigued. He would also do the same by regularly getting away to quiet and desolate places. Jesus was less hurried than any person that’s ever lived. Yet, he accomplished more than anyone ever has.

Don’t let the world around you “squeeze” you. The world tends to squeeze us into its mold. We must learn to withdraw from the pressures of the world. We must learn to be in solitude and shelter ourselves from noise and distraction. It’s important to learn to sometimes do “nothing.” By doing nothing, we’re actually doing a lot.

What Do We Do During the Dark Night of Our Souls?

Nothing. We wait on God. We do less. We ask him for help. We resign from things. We rest more. We let go of our need to hurry from our desperate situation. We have other people Pray for us. We don’t try to “do more.” Namely, more spiritual things. We must learn to WAIT on God in those moments.

Conclusion

Jesus’ invitation in Matthew 11 is an ongoing invitation and is not just in reference to salvation:

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-20

“The LORD is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads be beside still waters. He restores my soul.”
Psalm 23:1-3

Whenever we feel our soul’s neediness, Jesus is inviting us to come to Him. He’s inviting us to choose the better portion.