Five Best Soul Training Practices Most of Us Probably Need

I got this from reading The Good and Beautiful God written by James Bryan Smith. This is my second time reading this book along with the two more. Although I know that the Bible is the best source for spiritual growth, this book helped me a lot as it enlightened me with what the Bible meant.

The Holy Spirit used this book to speak to me and rebuke me at times. It made me cry in some chapters and lead me to kneel down as worship and praise to God.

I rate it 5/5.

So why do I have to share this?

I believe everyone has this need of the presence of God in their lives. Technically, His presence gives us true joy. Unfortunately, most people I know are seeking something. They lack something. Sometimes, I even find myself like this as well.

Smith suggests a number of soul training practices from the book series. Here are some of them.

Sleep

Well, as most of us know, work and technology make us miss nap times and shorten sleeping hours. Sadly, sometimes, we do not even sleep because of work to finish or a series to watch. Sometimes, not sleeping becomes reasonable. We least prioritize it. We neglect to give ourselves care and rest.

I remember the time when Jesus was in the garden to pray, His friends was with Him, but they did not pray with Him. They slept. If we do not have the physical strength, even if our spirits wants to pray and spend time with God, the flesh or our bodies will be weak to do so.

Sleeping is an act of letting go, an act of trust. If we place our burdens upon Jesus, He will surely give us rest.

Awareness of Creation

When we lack rest and stressed from work, our minds do not just stop. Sometimes, we are at work but we think about the family issues. When we are with our family, we think about our work. The best thing to relax ourselves is to stop and be observant.

Be aware of God’s creation. Be aware of the people God has placed in your life, whether they make big impacts or small or none at all. Stop for five minutes and write down some observations and ask God to reveal something to you. Thank God for the things around you, the nature that surrounds you, and the birds singing for you.

Lectio Divina

This suggests reading a few verses from the Bible slowly and repeatedly as we allow the verse to speak to us personally. It does not have to be long verses. This can be a time during our quiet time with God. We can also schedule a time for us to do this.

What matters is we take time reading the Bible, learn from Jesus’ teachings and character’s experiences, and claiming the promises of God personally.

After this, we can always publish or journalize our learnings and make the verses part of our lives. Memorizing the verses can also help us minister to other people. It strengthens others and ourselves.

Margin

None of us will read a book without a margin, and none will also complain if a book has large margins. Margins makes a book readable. It makes anything more presentable. Margin means buffer or space. We should create one in our lives.

As I have mentioned a while ago, people tend to prioritize work amd issues rather than resting. For some people, they prioritize so many things that they need more than twenty-four hours in a day. They have so much in their hands that they forget to set a margin for themselves to rest and strengthen their relationship with God and others.

They say that margin is where we build our character. This is why some busy people becomes rude and bad-tempered. They do not have margins where they can pause and think about their actions. It makes their rudeness acceptable. But it is not. We are to create margins in our lives to spend time with people, and for our character to grow.

Some people make margins by getting one minute earlier than usual, ending up one minute early at work with all the fear of getting late. It is reading a book quickly just because you want to finish it already.

Jesus is the best example. He wakes up VERY early in the morning so He could pray. He makes margin in His life making sure He will do the things God wants Him to do.

Slow down

We are always in a hurry. Deadlines. Traffic. Uncooperative colleagues. These makes us feel like we have to do things in a rush. In fact, when we do this, we usually end up not accomplishing the most important ones.

I have read this in Facebook before, “there is success in the hush, not in the hustle.” I pondered deeper into that and realized that every time we hurry, we do not have peace. we finish a project and end up worrying if it is excellent. Hurrying gives us fear and worries. Peace is what is robbed from us.

Always remember that Jesus was never in a hurry. He knew the concept of the perfect time. He trusted God always. We should also remember that we can act quickly, but not hurriedly. When we slow down, we choose to live in the present. We choose to spend our time with much value.

I hope this will also encourage you to read the book, and I hope it gave you some insights on how to live knowing Jesus as our lives’ model.