My second suggestion is to consider a way the spiritual disciplines could be a part of your exercise routine. This might be listening to a theology book while rowing, following an encouraging podcast while running, saying the Lord’s Prayer 50 times while swimming 50 laps, or repeating a memory verse while lifting.
This, of course, isn’t necessary. Honoring God by pursuing the health of your body needs no spiritual topping to be holy. It already is. But I find that in a world bent on separating the spiritual and the physical, incorporating some spiritual disciplines is a helpful way to remind yourself that the body can teach the soul and vice versa.
Justin Whitmel Earley is a lawyer, author and speaker. His latest book is The Body Teaches the Soul (Zondervan).
The Soul: Cultivating Intimacy With God
By Mark Neal
I have always loved being around water. There’s something about the stillness of a lake or the vastness of the ocean that brings me peace. But I also learned something important about water one summer at Lake James.
We had taken our boat out to the middle of the lake and jumped in the water to swim. After a while, we looked up and realized the boat was about to crash into the shore. Without even noticing, the current had carried it far away from where we started.
A friend finally told us, “If you will look up at the horizon every so often and pull the boat back, you can resist the drift.”
That picture has stayed with me because it’s exactly how ministry works. Drift is natural. It’s slow, subtle and often unnoticed. And ministry leaders are not exempt. In fact, I believe one of the greatest dangers facing pastors today is the drift factor—moving from intimacy with God to the busyness of ministry without even realizing it.
Yes, meetings, schedules and budgets are important. However, the most important gift you can give your church isn’t your sermons or your leadership. It is your soul, anchored in Christ.
Soul Care
God didn’t call you first to ministry; he called you to himself. Ministry was never meant to replace your personal walk with Christ. Caring for your soul means keeping that relationship with the Lord at the center. It means looking up at the horizon regularly, just like we had to with that drifting boat, to make sure you’re still tethered to him.
God called you to intimacy. Out of the overflow of that intimacy, he will lead you into the right ministry. The moment you drift from this intimacy, you risk settling for good things instead of God’s best.
If drift is natural, then anchoring must be intentional. The habits that anchor a leader’s soul to God aren’t flashy, but they are essential:
• Daily time in Scripture and prayer. Set aside time not for sermon prep, but for soul prep. We need God’s Word to read us before we preach it to others.
• Honest community. Develop a group of people who know your problems and can ask the hard questions. Isolation accelerates drift; community holds us steady.
• The Sabbath. You are not God, and your worth isn’t found in your output. Rest is a spiritual declaration of trust.
• Grounded identity. Before you are a pastor, you are a child of God. That truth is what will keep you rooted when everything else feels shaky.
Once when I planted a fast-growing church, everything looked healthy on the outside, but inside, I was withering. I buried pain under more work, thought busyness equaled faithfulness, and ignored the emptiness in my soul. The result was exhaustion, despair and even thoughts of walking away from it all.
