Soul Care in Busy Times

The holidays and life itself have been great reminders for Gwen and me about the need for soul care. It has been a lot—perhaps too much. Busyness. Full schedules. Sickness. Exhaustion in the midst of joyous times of family gatherings.In the midst of all of the busyness, how are we to care for our souls? For us, we were with all of our kids and their kids. We traveled to some while others came to us. Travel brings its own stress these days dosen't it? There were meals to prepare; presents to open; and hanging out with one another. It was full. It was sweet and it was a rich time. But we came away exhausted. We need to re-coup! I need to find “my” life that I seemed to have lost in a busy family time. But what if there’s no time to re-coup? That’s a problem!During December, Gwen and I barely had time for a conversation between ourselves—much less pray or take some moments for ourselves. I have some regrets. I didn’t read like I wanted. I wasn’t able to reflect back and forward into the New Year like I wanted. We were cramming in time and the gift of being present with each other. Much of the past few weeks feels like a blurr—not a blessing. I’m not complaining mind you, but trying to present some reality that stands in the face of caring for my soul. 0ther things happened which complicated our lives and health.A 24 hour “violent”—(is that the right word?) spread through our family while together. We watched our grandchildren drop like flies leaving us to meditate upon “We’re next!” more than God. Both Gwen and I got sick—something we did not want or invite. Interruptions happen—those events that face us that we do not want to face. Life is too full for the unexpected to drop in on us and mess up our already overly-crowded lives. When there is no space or margin in our lives, interruptions can send us spiraling. How will we ever be able to recover when we have to just buck up and move on and through? The unplanned things of life happen simply happen whether we are ready for them or not.When we think of our every day lives, we are busy, checking our lists and moving through our days. Diapers to change. Dishes to wash. Bills to pay. Groceries to be bought. Meals to prepare. There’s always more—always!In our work with people of all ages and in all seasons of life—one of the biggest pushbacks we hear is this: “I don’t have time to care for my soul. How can I fit THAT in upon every thing else I have to do?”Caring for your soul is learning to live with eternity in mind and in the heart. It requires a paradigm shift of how we look at our hours, days, weeks and years. Living with eternity in mind is at the heart of Jesus’ message: “Seek first the Kingdom of God” (Matt. 6:33). It is at the core of Paul’s epistles: “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Col. 3:2). While it is true that God has indeed set eternity in our hearts (Ecc. 3:11)—our minds are filled with the tyranny of the urgent and this is where the wheels of the bus come off in regard to caring for our souls.  So, soul care is learning how to maintain eternity in the midst of our crowded lives!Caring for our souls is a daily practice that keeps first things first. A mindless wandering through our days leads most of us to enter the hamster wheel where we simply spin and spin. Soul Care requires an intentional exit from the dizzying spinning and speed of life and to live with eternity in both of our minds and hearts.Annie Dillard reminds us so well that “how we live our days is how we live our lives.” Days upon days of survival foster a survival culture at home and in work. So, if we want to live better days and more full-filling weeks, we must make the choice every day to live with eternity in our hearts. The abundant life is a daily life which begins every day. Every day we have the opportunity to live with eternity in mind and heart.Here are five choices to cultivate eternity in your heart:

1. Choose to live slow one day a week. For one day a week, make a choice to resist speed. The cult of speed has infected most everything we do. For one day—life more intentionally; live more from the heart—where eternity is rooted. Walk rather than drive. Park further away from your destination to make you walk just a bit. Cook a slow meal, not "fast food" on this day-- involving family and friends. Savor the time with music, story or read a chapter out of a book together. Some might call this a Sabbath but moving slow is more than taking a day off. Moving slow sets the culture of your heart to wake up. By eradicating hurry from your life, I believe you’ll find greater joy than ever before. After you’ve made this choice and lived slow for one day a week, take some time and see if you’re inner contentment meter has moved in one direction or the other. Is there more inner peace? Why or why not?

2. Choose to live with your soul and the soul of other people in mind—not moving into robot mode to produce, accomplish and succeed. Living with the soul in mind is keeping eternity alive rather than going into a catatonic trance of survival. To live with the soul in mind and heart is to foster dignity for others and yourself. If you’re exhausted—rest. If you’re sick—ask yourself “Do I really have to push through not feeling well?” Living with the soul in mind is living with your own sense of well-being and the well-being of others. Being present and not preoccupied with technology in conversation is one way to live with the soul in mind. Leaving our stresses of work outside the home—sort of detoxing a bit before we enter the doors of home can help. 

1. Choose to be healthy. This daily choice requires us to monitor three vital areas of our daily lives: sleeping, eating and moving. It’s really not that complicated. These three areas: sleeping well, eating healthy and moving more all work together to help us become more healthy. Healthy living requires this trinity of a way of looking at our lives and giving our bodies what our bodies need to be healthy.

1. Choose to have silence every day for 10 minutes. The only antidote there is to our busy lives and busy minds is being quiet. Sit BY yourself and WITH yourself every day for 10 minutes. Consent to the presence of God within you and around you. There is nothing to do but to be still. The only way for a shaken jar full of mud and water to settle is stillness.

 5. Choose to read only the “red” letters of Jesus. Rather than trying and trying to read the Bible through in a year—try something more realistic and doable. At the most stressful times of my life, I make a choice to read only the words of Jesus. I have found a comfort, peace and hope in his words that really help me focus and give me hope. Sometimes, it’s the simple things we do that can move us forward when we’re stuck. For me, finding a “red letter edition” of the Bible and focusing on what Jesus actually said helps. Start with Matthew 5—where Jesus begins his infamous “sermon on the mount."  Read it in a new version or translation that gives you the space to be offered new expressions and intent.

5 Reasons I Still Struggle with Sabbath

Ever since I was a boy, I heard about the 10 Commandments.  Most of them made sense but one still messes with me until this very day. Here are five reasons I still struggle with Sabbath:

1. I still believe in the illusion that I don’t need to stop.

As a type “A” personality, I have to face it: Going is better than stopping. Doing more seems more doable than doing less. Pausing, stopping, ceasing and resting are not in my mother tongue’s vocabulary. I speak “Let’s get ‘ur done!” Since working hard was modeled for me as a boy by the men in my life, I absorbed an ethos that I now see, decades later, has wreaked havoc in my soul and done violence to my life by choosing to always to more—not less—at least one day a week. 

2. I sometimes do not believe in the sovereignty of God.

 When you stop for one day a week, we are given the opportunity to lean into the sovereignty of God. I take my hands off the plow, off the keyboard; off the gear-shift of my high octane life and let go of trying to control my life. Sabbath gives us one day a week to take the hands off of the control shift of our life and to surrender to the spiritual act of letting go. I have to face the fact that in my core, I want control more than I want to let go. To practice letting go—for one day a week—is perhaps an ultimate sign that you really do trust God more than you trust yourself. 

3. I don’t really believe in my well-being. I believe in my well doing more!

 Doing more always costs us. Always being “on” and always being “available” costs a person their well-being. When we are in our 20’s and 30’s we push and strive. We achieve and perform. In our 40’s we begin to question this credo—yet secretly because we don’t want to be labeled “normal” or average. If we do more, then perhaps we believe, we can finally arrive. But well-being is state of being that requires a day a week to cease; to enjoy—to delight in something other than work and performance. 

4. It’s easier to work than to rest.

 Keeping a day as a Sabbath is one of the 10 Commandments. God knew from the beginning that we would work, strive and live by the sweat of our brow. So when we practice Sabbath—we are practicing one of the oldest spiritual practices ever given and known to humanity. Just as we are told not to kill, steal and cheat on our spouses, we are told to rest one day a week. To choose to practice Sabbath is to intentionally chose to resist our culture. [tweetthis]Sabbath keeping, for me, is counter cultural as well as counter-intuitive.[/tweetthis] Sabbath keeping does not make sense to so many of us. As we lean into this ancient practice, we soon realize that God’s ways are truly not our ways. We would never cease; never stop; never Sabbath and that is our undoing. It has been my undoing in my life, my fathering and my being a husband. When I practice Sabbath, I am reminding myself “I do not want to be undone any more. “ Sabbath helps me really live. 

5. Money seems more powerful than trust.

 At the root of Sabbath is the power of mammon—money. God’s intent in helping us rest is to help us put money in perspective. Money is not really everything. Money does not define us when we are burned out and used up. The rival God of the 21^st century is money and Sabbath keeping deflates the over-inflated ego of the dollar—no matter what currency you use. When we Sabbath—note I uses this as a verb and not a noun—we live with bigger goals in mind and heart. Money intoxicates the soul. Sabbath puts everything into perspective. When we Sabbath, we live smaller lives and being small, one day a week is a very good thing for the soul.  For more help on Sabbath and living a rhythm of life that sustains you, and doesn't drain you, please get and read Chapter 5 of Inside Job: "Exposing the Lie of Being Balanced." Order the book here and get started!  Order Inside Job and the accompanying workbook here!

Combating Busyness!

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXbYBtvqW1Q[/youtube]I'm convinced of this one thing:  the pace of life that we are presently living is not sustainable. The wheels are going to come off the bus of our lives--and in many lives--this has already happened. Lives that once resembled someone who was truly alive now looks like carnage!Constant availability is going to "do" us in. When we're always on, always wired and always available, we never have the opportunity to refuel our souls. We live our lives on empty and through the barrenness and emptiness of our lives--we have the audacity to call our lives--the abundant life.Living in a perpetual state of busyness is not the abundant life. Jesus had something MORE in mind when he alone promised a life could be enjoyed that was "rich and satisfying."Here are five things you can begin to do now to help you get off the hamster wheel and foster the abundant life:1. Take short breaks during each work day to move away from your desk and take a brisk walk.2. Pull away from social media for extended blocks of time. Rather than constantly checking email, Facebook and Twitter, use 15 minutes blocks to check in and interact.3. Practicing sabbath--one day of total rest and pleasure is the kingpin of all life sustaining spiritual rhythms. Be a sabbath keeper this week! What day will work?4. Plan on a life-giving meal with 2-3 of your most life giving friends. Linger together over a meal and enjoy the conversation!5. Spend 15 minutes a day in silence--without silence it is virtually impossible to live the spiritual life. When we're still--we hear from God! It does take time to de-clutter all the voices of the inner heart to begin to listen but this is why it's called a spiritual discipline. ------------------------------------------“Steve Smith cuts through the religious paraphernalia and daily clutter that obstructs our path to lives of purpose and power, and he clearly explains the simplicity of The Jesus Life in the Kingdom of God. He has deep insights into how we have come to live the way we do, in church and out. With refreshing realism and wide-ranging knowledge, he helps us identify dear illusions that bog us down and introduces us to simple steps and arrangements that enable eternal living. The directions he gives are self-validating. We have only to ‘just do it.’ The Jesus Life would be ideal for real spiritual progress in small groups in church and in community. Serious individual engagement with it will bring assurance that the life praised in our songs and scriptures can be ours.”

Dallas Willard, author of The Divine Conspiracy

  For more on this subject, please refer to Chapter 2-3 of The Jesus Life! Pre-Order here: http://www.amazon.com/Jesus-Life-Recover-Authentic-Christianity/dp/143470064X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1330623836&sr=8-1