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(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2014)
208 pgs
While I am sure that most if not all of us have a sense of who we are, it occurs to me that I often don’t take time to consider the current state of who I am, much less give attention to the cultivation of the inner self. I am easily distracted by the stuff of daily living and if not careful, find myself living life from the “outside in” and losing touch with the things that really matter.
John Ortberg refers to this needed spiritual discipline as “soul keeping”, getting in touch with the destiny God has for us, not simply one day to come in Heaven, but in this day, today. Ortberg takes us on a journey into the inner life of the soul, challenging us to move beyond “reputation and appearance” to who God has made us to be, in His image, in constant fellowship with Him.
Early in the book is a story you should take time to Google – “The Keeper of the Stream”. I had read it once upon a time, but in the context of Ortberg’s focus on the soul, it took on new and deeper meaning. At the conclusion of the story is the following quote from Dallas Willard, a great influence on Dr. Ortberg’s understanding of who we are as living soul
Our soul is like a stream of water, which gives strength, direction, and harmony to every other area 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 then profusely rooted in the vastness of God and his kingdom, including nature; and all else within us is enlivened and directed by the stream. Therefore we are in harmony with God, reality, and the rest of human nature and nature at large. – Dallas Willard
Ortberg’s working definition of the soul is perhaps stated most clearly in chapter 2 – “Your soul is what integrates your will (your intentions), your mind (your thoughts and feelings, your values and conscience), and your body (your face, body language and actions) into a single life. A soul is healthy – well-ordered – when there is harmony between these three entities and God’s intent for all creation. When you are connected with God and other people in life, you have a healthy soul.”
Sin is the great enemy of the soul, threatening our intimacy with God and our harmony with those around us. In an insightful way, Ortberg uses the parable of the sower to call attention to the constancy of the sower and the seed, but the variable condition of the soil, equating the word “soil” with “soul”. He describes the “hardened soul”, the “shallow soul” and the “cluttered soul” as aberrations of what God intends for us and as prelude to the heart of the book, chapters 6-15, where he addresses “what the soul needs” to be and become all that God desires.
The soul must orbit around something other than itself – something it can worship. It is the nature of the soul to need. What the soul truly desires is God. We may try to fill that need with other things, but the soul will never be satisfied without God…our soul begins to grow in God when we acknowledge our basic neediness.
John Ortberg
Over the next chapters, the focus in on the key needs of the soul – a keeper, a center, a future, to be with God, rest, freedom, blessing, satisfaction and gratitude. These pages are filled with wonderful truths and statements that pierce to the heart of the matter – God has placed in each of us eternity as “man became a living soul” and we have a stewardship to live in such a manner that we place singular importance on our relationship with the one who gave us life. Here is a brief sampling of these statements:
I am responsible to take care of my soul not just for my own sake. The condition of my
soul will affect the people around me…
When my soul is not centered in God, I define myself by my accomplishments, or my
physical appearance, or my title, or my important friends.
The soul seeks God with its whole being. Because it is desperate to be whole, the soul
is God-smitten and God-crazy and God-obsessed. My mind may be obsessed with idols;
my will may be enslaved to habits; my body may be consumed with appetites. But my
soul will never find rest until it rests in God.
We were made to make a difference beyond ourselves…our lives were meant to be signs
that point beyond ourselves to God.
Significance is about who we are before it is about what we do.
The space where we find rest and healing for our souls is solitude.
God’s law was given to us not to force us to obey a list of rules, but to free our souls to
live full and blessed.
Jesus said if you devote your life to pleasing yourself, you will actually destroy your soul,
whereas if you place honoring God above pleasing yourself, then your soul will be
truly satisfied.
At the conclusion of the short story, “The Keeper of the Stream”, is the statement “The life of the village depends on the health of the stream. The stream is your soul. And you are the Keeper.”
I commend this book to you and pray your soul will find its true resting place in God.
by Rick Fisher