Soul Care

The goal of the Christian disciple is that we would be fully transformed in our character so to have the character of Christ. We said this happens not by trying harder, but by training as an apprentice of the Master, receiving his instruction and his power. To “put off the old person, as St. Paul says, and put on the new,

“Until Christ is formed in you.” Galatians 4.19

Your soul is something that needs more attention before you die than after. There is a lot to be said and learned about the soul, but for our purposes we will simply understand the soul to be the hidden or spiritual side of the person. It includes an individual’s thoughts and feelings, along with heart, or will, with its intents and choices. We may think of the soul as our essential self.

Spiritual formation, whether it is Christian, Buddhist, or atheist, is simply the process by which the human spirit or will is given a definite form or character. Make no mistake, it is a process that happens to everyone. The worst and the best persons have had spiritual formation. Their spirits have been formed, into something incredibly good and beautiful, fit for heaven, or into something utterly horrible and wicked, and only at home in Hell.

“There is a hidden dimension to every human life, one not visible to others or fully graspable even by ourselves,” Dallas Willard writes. “This is God’s gift to us in creation, that we might have the space to become the persons we choose to be. From here we manage our lives as best we can, utilizing whatever resources of understanding, emotion, and circumstance are available. It is here that we stand before God and our conscience.”

Christian spiritual formation is using any means available to help us do by training what we cannot do by direct effort, that is be made like Jesus. You might say, well what about the Holy Spirit, what about grace? This is all done in grace by the power of the Holy Spirit. Grace is opposed to earning not to effort.

“Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and work for his good pleasure.” Philippians 2.12-13

Christian spiritual formation is not only wanting to “be merciful, kind, and patient” (Colossians 3) but also planning and doing to become so. It must be briefly said that for many of us we have counted on listening to sermons and singing a few songs, and maybe even, attending a Sunday School class to form us. This strategy has not turned out well. We have multitudes of professing Christians who may be ready to die but obviously are not ready to live, and can hardly get along with themselves, much less with others. Worship, sermons,, and classes are necessary practices but are in themselves, very incomplete as regards to spiritual formation. They are particularly incomplete if they do not touch the soul, the hidden life of the person. How many of us have left worship and felt unmoved, untouched, or unchanged? A person without spiritual practices is hard soil for the Word of God of to find purchase on.

Good spiritual formation includes many practices and practices essential to the individual. It happens every day, not just one a week or twice a month. Spiritual practices or disciplines are all the tools in our tool belt available to us for our training to become like Jesus. As such, there is no complete list of spiritual practices, but there is obviously some core practices – worship, confession, study, prayer, solitude, silence, celebration, service, witness, fasting – that should be used by every disciple in training.

I want to focus just on three practices this morning, solitude, silence, and scripture memorization.

These practices are related and essential to us being freed from the tyrannical grip of our present culture. These, like all good practices, strive to put God constantly before our minds. One way spiritual practices change us is by changing our thought processes. Sinful people cannot stand to think about God and about who He is. So practice helps us to think about God on a regular basis in the midst of our daily lives.

Solitude - “go away by yourself.” Be still and know God. Slowing is the term for a related practice. Many people, well-meaning people, cannot succeed in being kind because they are too rushed to get things done. “Haste has worry, fear, and anger as close associates,” Willard notes. Get away from the talk, the noise, the electronics and “do nothing.” Dare to be by yourself. Being by yourself frightens some of you. I know people who, even when they are with others, have trouble sitting still, you can see it in their eyes and in the nervous movement of the hands and feet. Presumably it’s because “they have too much to do.” Let’s be clear – God never gives anyone too much to do. We do that to ourselves or allow others to do it to us. And when we live this way we are expressing no confidence in God and the fact that He is working at all.

When we practice solitude we are saying Lord I trust my life and my world in your faithful hands. Everything good that happens is because of your efforts. I rest at ease in you. Take solitude daily, weekly, monthly and annually. Get away to the woods, the beach, or simply your back porch.

Silence – Jesus knew when to talk and when to be quiet. He had this ability because he spent more than twenty years as part of a sometimes rancorous family. He was, for most of his life, a blue-collar worker, a tradesman, an independent contractor. He knew what it was like to “do business with the public.” Everything Jesus taught he had already practiced. His brother James saw and learned this. He later wrote about the power of patience in the daily events of life, manifested above all by an inoffensive tongue. (James 3.2) Many supposedly faithful Christians use vile language, and the vilest is when they strike others with their sharp words. You don’t have to use a curse word to curse someone with your tongue. How does the inside of your car sound when you are stuck in traffic or cut off by someone in front of you, or even in a tense moment at home? People say, “That’s just me. I can’t help it.” But this is giving undo power to our sinful ways. Hurting people with our tongue is not like the Law of Gravity. It’s not a law of nature that makes us assassinate the humanity of others.

We can change. We begin by asking God’s help to do this good thing. We continue by practicing controlling our tongue. Shut it when bad stuff is going to come out. That idea of venting to let it out – forget it, it’s wrong. Venting, at least in hurtful ways, only grows the anger in you. You call someone a jerk because it makes you feel like you have power over them. And calling someone a name lies on a continuum with shooting him.

“You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. . .” Matthew 5.38-39

This verse lived out will feel very difficult for some and even impossible for others. But for the disciple in training the difficulty, with practice, will give way to nothing out of the ordinary, to the point where you stop thinking about it at all - because your heart and mind are on pleasing God.

Scripture memorization - the most effective way to get your mind on God is by getting God’s Word in your mind. Again, our usual way of limiting our exposure to the Bible to Sunday mornings isn’t working. What the Church used to do right we aren’t doing anymore. We need to recover the practice of Scripture memorization. And not just for the kids either.

“This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth.” Joshua 1.8

That’s where we need it, in our mouths. How did it get there? Memorization. Lots of people would stay out of trouble if they had been muttering scripture. When you hear stories about men and women who have, as they say, fallen, the sad thing is not just that they fell, but what has been in their mind all along, possibly for many years or even all their life. Think about, in Paul’s words, what is good and true and beautiful instead. Read a verse, a passage or chapter in the morning or the night before and keep muttering it through the day. Ask yourself if this is not better than the usual litany of silly songs and useless clutter our culture serves up to our consuming minds everyday. For example, the words of Psalm 23 are much better than the words to the Adams Family TV show that I found myself singing the other day. I’m going to challenge our classes and small groups on this point, to make scripture memorization a regular part of our life together. And I challenge you take that up in your daily devotion. If we do not know the Bible it cannot help us.

These practices, along with many others will help us to train for inward and outward change with the help of God’s power and grace. People in training learn the keys to life and the acceptance of the everyday problems of life. We become “grace-full” people. It eventually looks effortless, this changing of our personality, but the disciple knows the amount of training that is required.