Soul Care

Scriptures: Matthew 4:18-21, John 15:5

The Master And The Apprentice

For as long as I can remember, I’ve struggled to live out the lessons Jesus taught. I’ve never struggled to believe His messages, or to believe Jesus is who He says He is. I’ve just struggled to live His lessons. Growing up, I knew I shouldn’t steal, lie, gossip, or compare myself to others. I knew I should love my enemies, be patient, keep my thoughts pure, and so on. I just failed hopelessly. 

Maybe you can relate. I reckon every follower of Jesus struggles with this. No matter how much knowledge we accumulate about Jesus, we still struggle to obey His teachings. 

When I was at university, I worked parttime as a labourer and was introduced to the concept of apprenticeship. The goal of an apprentice is to become like the master tradesman he’s working for. Even as a parttime worker I found myself not only learning new skills but taking on the lifestyle choices of the guys I was working for. 

This idea of apprenticeship – adopting the habits of your master – is an ancient concept that applies to your spiritual life too. In the first century, Jewish spiritual leaders were called rabbis, and the most famous rabbi of all was Jesus Christ. Most rabbis invited the very best students they could find to be their apprentices, but Jesus was different. His invitation was not reserved for the best of the best. It wasn’t then, and it isn’t now. 

Matthew records how Jesus called hated tax collectors (like Matthew himself), uneducated fishermen, and others to follow Him. He was just looking for ordinary people willing to be with Him and learn from Him. An apprentice lived with the rabbi – eating, resting, travelling with him – and spending all that time with the master had a ripple effect on an apprentice’s life. He would become like the master and behave like the master. Same-same for us: if we spend all our time with Jesus, we’ll become like Jesus, and behave as He behaved. So, if we want to live out the lessons Jesus taught, we must adopt the lifestyle Jesus lived.

Thankfully, if you’re a follower of Jesus, He lives in you. So, it’s not about findingJesus but rather being attentive to Him. Jesus said if you abide in Him – which is the keystone habit of being with Him – you’ll bear much fruit. Charles Duhigg defines a keystone habit as an operational routine which has a ripple effect in every area of your life. So, the fruit Jesus produces in your life will not just be knowing the lessons He taught but actually living them out, which will beautifully impact every area of your life. 

Our culture is obsessed with externals, but the keystone habit of being with Jesus is all about your inner life. May you begin to consider not so much what you’re doing for God but rather how you’re caring for the garden of your soul by adopting the habits of the master gardener, Jesus.

Scriptures: Matthew 11:28-30, Mark 1:35

Sunlight For Your Soul

As apprentices of Jesus, one of our biggest challenges is to dial down the noise and busyness of our lives. We long for more peace, joy, and rest – but our days are lived at breakneck speed, filled with activity and distraction. We’re exhausted. 

This soul weariness isn’t unique to our generation, and Jesus isn’t surprised by it. He created and modelled a rhythm of rest. ‘Come to Me,’ He said, ‘all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and my burden is light.’ (Matthew 11:28–30 NIV) 

What’s more, Jesus Himself faced the overwhelming demands of a noisy, needy, negative world. But if you look closely at His lifestyle rhythms, you’ll notice He habitually snuck away to quiet, isolated places, starting on His very first day of (hectic) ministry. Jesus didn’t fill every moment of every day, doing His Father’s work. He understood the importance of simply being with His Father, through the practice of silence and solitude. 

If Jesus saw this as an essential, transformative habit, how much more should we prioritize and practise it? And then, what do silence and solitude even look like? 

Charles Duhigg suggests three necessary steps for habit formation: a cue leads to a routine which ends in a reward. So, when developing a habit of silence and solitude: 

1. Decide on a time. What will work best for you? This will be your cue. 
2. Discover your place. Is there a peaceful spot where interruption is unlikely? This will help make the practice a routine. 
3. Delight in God’s love for you. This will be your reward. 

Next you might ask, ‘How do I delight in God’s love?’ Perhaps pick a word or phrase that reminds you of God’s love. When you’re sitting in silence, and your thoughts begin to wander, use that word or phrase to re-center your mind on God. I tend to say things like Jesus, Abba, or Here I am Lord.

Remember: everyone’s different. Don’t compare your practice of silence and solitude to somebody else’s. You might sit for two minutes outside. Someone else might choose ten minutes inside. Start small. See how it goes. Don’t focus on perfectly practicing silence and solitude. Focus on God’s presence. Your silence and solitude ‘muscles’ will strengthen over time. 

Just like you can’t see what sunlight is doing to plants in a garden, you won’t always see what silence and solitude are doing to your soul. But through the miracle of photosynthesis, plants receive their nutrients from the sun, and a similar soul-feeding miracle takes place through this practice too. Silence and solitude feed your soul by giving you space and room to breathe, and by allowing you to stop for long enough to simply be – and hear the voice of your Father.

Scriptures: Genesis 1, Genesis 2:1-4, Mark 2:23-27, Ecclesiastes 3:11

Replenishing Your Soul

I suffer from a disease called more-itis. It’s likely you do too. I define it as the insatiable desire for more. More house, more cars, more holidays, more stuff, more time, more fun, more money, more never-ending everything. (And because we want more of everything, we add more to our to-do lists!) 

This desire for more is actually from God. Solomon explained that God plants in our hearts an ever-growing longing for more of Him and His perfections, which we see in Ecclesiastes 3:11. When our desire for more is in a healthy place, it directs our hearts towards God and the truth that there’s more to this life. And, in the very beginning, God created a habit to help us remember all this. 

The first chapters of Genesis give us the creation story, culminating in day seven, when God rested. This God-given rhythm of rest – the sabbath – combats our unquenchable desire for more. God commanded a weekly downing of tools so His people would stop, rest, delight, contemplate and do no paid or unpaid work, surrendering to Him as their Provider. 

Except, the Jewish people took God’s sabbath law a bit too seriously. They began to worship the practice of sabbath instead of the God who designed it. One sabbath day, however, Jesus corrected their thinking. Hungry, He and His followers ate some grain from a field. The religious leaders were immediately critical of this activity, forbidden on the sabbath. But Jesus pointed out that the sabbath isn’t something we have to do. It’s something we get to do. 

Two questions will help you discover the riches of a weekly sabbath. Ask yourself: 

1. Do these activities drain me, distracting me from God’s goodness in my life? (If they do, don’t do them on your sabbath.) 
2. Do these activities replenish me, causing me to rejoice in God’s goodness in my life? (If they do, do them on your sabbath.) 

Next, there are four simple steps for practicing the sabbath. 

1. Stop. Pause your paid and unpaid work for 24 hours. 
2. Rest. Your body and brain need it. 
3. Delight. Do things that fill your tank. Celebrate God’s goodness. 
4. Contemplate. Reflect on God’s goodness in your life and worship Him. 

Like silence and solitude, sabbath will look different for everyone, so don’t compare. Choose practice over perfection and just begin, watering the garden of your inner life with rest and replenishment, to ease your thirst for more-more-more. 

You may think you can’t afford to take a sabbath. The truth is, you can’t afford not to. And again, sabbath isn’t a have to, it’s a get to. Wayne Muller puts it beautifully: ‘Sabbath requires surrender. If we only stop when we are finished with all our work, we will never stop – because our work is never completely done. If we refuse to rest until we are finished, we will never rest until we die. Sabbath dissolves the artificial urgency of our days, because it liberates us from the need to be finished.’

Scriptures: Matthew 6:19-34, Luke 10:4

Room For Your Soul To Breathe

It’s fair to say most of us overcrowd our schedules and hoard too much junk. Perhaps you even chose this reading plan because you know you’re way too busy, and you’ve got way too much stuff. Thankfully, Jesus models another keystone habit to help you tend to the garden of your inner life when it comes to managing time and things: simplicity. 

Jesus was a first-century minimalist, living lightly and freely when it came to His stuff and His schedule. He travelled from town to town, carrying just what He needed. He stayed in people’s homes and ate with them, and He told His apprentices to do the same. ‘Don’t worry about clothes, food, and the future,’ He would tell them. ‘God’s got you.’ Jesus differentiated between what we need and what we want, giving us a stunning description of how our Heavenly Father cherishes us and meets our every need. Jesus also warned of the dangers of cluttering our lives with too many appointments and our cupboards with way more than we need. He encouraged us to invest in things of eternal value, understanding that our deepest desires are closely aligned with the things we possess, which we see in Matthew 6:19-34. 

Joshua Becker defines minimalism as the intentional promotion of what we value most by removing everything that distracts us from it. So, considering Jesus’ teachings, how do we intentionally promote things that will last for eternity – rather than obsessing over things that won’t? 

These four steps have helped me build the keystone habit of simplicity: 

1. Define what you really need. Start with the basics – food, clothing and shelter – and go from there. 
2. Discover your distractions. Which things are not most important to you, and yet regularly distract you? 
3. Decide how you’ll start removing those distractions, and finally – 
4. Do it. Eliminate distractions in your life. Generosity is the greatest antidote to gathering and greed. Give some stuff away. 

Of course, adopting Jesus’ lifestyle habit of simplicity is completely countercultural – and difficult. The weeds you pull up from the garden of your inner life will pop up again and again. Keep weeding – keep decluttering – so your soul can thrive and be fruitful. 

Can you imagine for a moment what adopting this habit of simple living could do for you? Imagine the clarity and freedom it will bring. Studies show that simplicity actually leads to better physical and mental health. 

If you don’t fight for simplicity, you’ll drift into complexity. Adele Calhoun wisely said, ‘One day we will all have to let go of everything, even our own breath. It will be a day of utter simplicity. A day when the importance of stuff fades. Learning to live simply prepares us for our last breath while cultivating in us the freedom to truly live here and now.’

Scripture: Colossians 3:16

Nourishment For Your Soul

The pervasive mindset in our culture is knowledge is power. The assumption is that having loads of information on any given subject guarantees mastery. But this idea doesn’t work for our spiritual lives. Simply knowing more about God doesn’t equal knowing God more. 

It’s easy to default to approaching scripture just to gain more information. We think a reading plan or even a robust study of a Bible book will somehow make us more spiritual. But Jesus had a different approach to scripture. He taught His followers through stories and relationship, sharing incredible truth through common experiences His listeners could understand. He was more focused on transformation than information. He wanted to connect them with God, and He wants that for us today too. 

Paul explains how we can relate to scripture in this way: ‘Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.’(Colossians 3:16) The keystone habit Paul is encouraging here is to allow Jesus’ teachings to take up residency in your life. Again, it’s not about intellectual understanding. It’s about allowing truth to become part of your DNA – then actually living it. It’s not about ticking a box. It’s about meditating on what Jesus taught. 

Gross image alert: meditation is like a cow chewing the cud (chew, swallow, regurgitate, chew, swallow, repeat…). To let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, try reading scripture more slowly, and in smaller bites. The ancient practice called Lectio Divina is helpful for this. It involves four steps: read (lectio), meditate (meditatio), pray (oratio), and contemplate (contemplatio). 

Take a short Bible passage and read it. Read it again slowly. Which word or phrase really strikes you? Pray about it, asking God to make the message meaningful in your circumstances by contemplating how, where, or why He’s prompting you to apply this word. You might want to practice Lectio Divina using one of the passages of scripture we’ve highlighted in this reading plan. Remember the goal isn’t just to gain Biblical head knowledge, but to be in intimate conversation with Jesus as you read. 

Imagine the difference knowing God more would make in your life – as opposed to just knowing more about God. When we get to know God better, we become more like Him. To bring this back to our gardening metaphor: just as silence is like sunlight and sabbath is like water to your soul, the slow relational reading of scripture is like slow-release fertilizer to your soul. J.I. Packer rightly said, ‘How can we turn our knowledge about God into knowledge of God? The rule for doing this is simple but demanding. It is that we turn each truth that we learn about God into matter for meditation before God, leading to prayer and praise to God.’

Scriptures: Mark 5:21-42, Numbers 6:24-26

Slowing Your Soul Through The Seasons

We’ve been focusing on the idea that to live the lessons Jesus taught, we must adopt the lifestyle Jesus lived. We do this by building into our lives the keystone habits Jesus modelled: silence and solitude, sabbath, simplicity, and scripture reading. 

Today, let’s consider the overall rhythm and pace of Jesus’ life. 

Our world celebrates speed. We love fast cars, fast athletes, fast food. We get rewarded at school for finishing fastest. What gets rewarded gets repeated. So here we are, obsessed with speed and living with artificial urgency, always desperate to move on to the next thing as quickly as possible. But this faster-is-better mentality is perhaps your greatest soul-care obstacle. Tending to the garden of your inner life requires embracing a slower pace. 

Jesus’ life on Earth stands in stark contrast to society’s current speed. Not once was Jesus in a hurry. He didn’t run to appointments. Of course, while walking everywhere was one of Jesus’ keystone habits, people often ran to Jesus with very real, dire needs. Jairus hurries to find Jesus because his daughter is dying. No artificial urgency. Critical need. Jesus agrees to accompany Jairus to heal her. Along the way, a woman who’s been bleeding for twelve years – another desperate need – touches the fringe of Jesus’ robe in faith. She’s healed. Jesus realises what’s happened, stops, and lovingly, patiently engages with her. 

I wonder if Jairus was frustrated by the delay. Why wasn’t Jesus rushing to save his daughter’s life? In fact, by the time Jesus reaches Jairus’ house, she’s dead. But Jesus raises her to life – an even more spectacular miracle than just healing. And Mark records some astonishing detail: the girl is twelve years old; the woman has been bleeding for twelve years. For twelve years, Jesus knew this day was coming. He didn’t rush to get to it. He was right on time, only ever walking at the pace of grace. And as we follow Him, we can learn to walk at the pace of grace too. 

Dallas Willard, when asked for the secret to the Christian life, responded: ‘You must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from your life.’ But how? 

1. Identify situations in which you’re prone to hurry. Driving? Waiting in line? Meetings? 
2. Change your habits in those environments. Drive in the slow lane. Get to meetings a little early; take a moment to catch your breath and be still. Pick the longest line wherever you’re queuing. 
3. In these moments of waiting and slow living, pray. Focus your attention on God’s love. Ask Him how you can extend His love to others while you’re waiting. 
4. Record moments when you experience God’s love or have a chance to extend God’s love to someone else because you’ve chosen to live slowly. This will increase your faith to keep living at the pace of grace. 

Slow living is like seasons for the soul. Like a garden, our souls need all four, slowly passing seasons to thrive. May you trust God with your schedule, remembering that love and hurry are incompatible. May you begin to enjoy living patiently, fully present to each moment.