Home > Work > Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You
61 " Good habits are enormously freeing — we accomplish good things almost on autopilot. One study from Duke University found that more than 40 percent of the actions people take every day aren’t decisions, but habits. Good habits free us, but when sin becomes a habit, our souls lose their freedom. "
― John Ortberg , Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You
62 " We’re generally quite good at doing something, but we’re really bad at doing nothing. "
63 " If you want to free your soul, you acknowledge that there is a spiritual order that God has designed for you. You are not the center of the universe. You are not the master of your fate. You are not the captain of your ship. There is a God, and you aren’t him. True freedom comes when you embrace God’s overall design for the world and your place in it. This is why in the Bible you see this strong connection between God’s law and soul-freedom. "
64 " Your eternal destiny is not cosmic retirement; it is to be part of a tremendously creative project, under unimaginably splendid leadership, on an inconceivably vast scale, with ever-increasing cycles of fruitfulness and enjoyment — that is the prophetic vision which ‘eye has not seen and ear has not heard.’ "
65 " The world conspires against our souls by blinding us to the depth and glory of their God-given design and tempting us to be satisfied with immediate gratification. "
66 " A very simple way to guard your soul is to ask yourself, “Will this situation block my soul’s connection to God? "
67 " deliberately look for God in the ordinary moments of everyday life. "
68 " The most important thing about you,” Dallas would often say, “is not the things that you achieve; it is the person that you become. "
69 " Superficiality,” said Richard Foster, “is the curse of our age.” The desperate need of the soul is not for intelligence, nor talent, nor yet excitement; just depth. "
70 " All of our language reflects this. If you’re empty, you need to fulfill yourself. If you’re stressed, learn how to take care of yourself. If you’re on a job interview, you have to believe in yourself. If you’re at the tattoo parlor, you must learn to express yourself. If someone dares to criticize you, you have to love yourself. If you’re not getting your own way, you have to stand up for yourself. What should you do on a date? You ought to be yourself. What if your self is a train wreck? What do you do then? "
71 " Somebody said that if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. "
72 " Here’s some soul homework, by way of Dallas Willard: If you want to really experience the flow of love as never before, the next time you are in a competitive situation [around work or relationship or whose kids are the highest achieving or looks or whatever], pray that the others around you will be more outstanding, more praised, and more used of God than yourself. Really pull for them and rejoice in their success. If Christians were universally to do this for each other, the earth would soon be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God. "
73 " Author and former seminary professor Neal Plantinga once said something amazing about our capacity for addiction. He said it shows that we were wired for ecstasy. Not the drug, but pure, ecstatic joy. Our ceaseless craving for more, though it can kill us when unredeemed, may be a hint of the joy that we were made for when the soul finds its center in God. "
74 " To paraphrase a line from a movie: There will be great pain, and there will be great joy. In the end, joy wins. So if joy has not yet won, it is not yet the end. Jesus is crucified. The pain is overwhelming — not the end. Jesus is risen — the joy is overwhelming. "
75 " Ironically, the more obsessed we are with our selves, the more we neglect our souls. "
76 " Jesus was often busy, but never hurried. "
77 " Sin is not just the wrong stuff we do; it’s the good we don’t do. It’s the starving children we don’t want to look at, the volunteering we avoid, the poor we don’t want to serve, and the money we don’t want to give. "
78 " I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” No, I am its keeper, not its captain. I did not make it, and I cannot save it from death. That’s why soul-care is a different task than self-care. I do not care for my soul only for my own sake. It is only mine on loan, and it is coming due soon. "
79 " As Kent Dunnington puts it, “We are limited in every way but one: we have unlimited desire.” We always want more: more time, more wisdom, more beauty, more funny YouTube videos. This is the soul crying out. We never have enough. The truth is, the soul’s infinite capacity to desire is the mirror image of God’s infinite capacity to give. What if the real reason we feel like we never have enough is that God is not yet finished giving? The unlimited neediness of the soul matches the unlimited grace of God. "
80 " The most important thing in your life,” Dallas said, “is not what you do; it’s who you become. That’s what you will take into eternity. You are an unceasing spiritual being with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe. "