Soul Keeping

I just finished reading John Ortberg's book Soul Keeping.  I found it to be a good read with some thoughtful insights.  Below are a few quotes from this book.

• The most important thing in your life is not what you do; it's who you become.

• If your soul is healthy, no external circumstance can destroy your life.

• Your soul is what integrates, what connects, what binds together  your will (your intentions), your mind (your thoughts and feelings, your values and conscience), and your body( with all of its appetites, habits, and behavior) into a single life.  God designed us so that our choices, our thoughts and desires and our behavior would be in perfect harmony with each other and would be powered by an unbroken connection with God. A soul is healthy -well-ordered - when there is harmony between these three entities and God.  

• When the will has become enslaved by its need, when the mind has become obsessed with the object of its desire, when the appetite of the body has become master rather than servant, the soul is disordered. 

• To focus on my soul means to look at my life under the care and connection of God.  To focus on myself apart from God means losing awareness of what matters most. 

• 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. 

• The soul thrives not through our accomplishments but through simply being with God.

• The soul was made to rest in God the way a tree rests in soil.

• You were made for soul-satisfaction, but you will only ever find it in God.  The soul craves to be secure.  The soul craves to be loved.  The soul craves to be significant, and we find these only in God in a form that can satisfy us.  That's why the psalmist says to God, "Because your love is better than life...my soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods."  Soul and appetite and satisfaction are dominant themes in the Bible - the soul craves because it is meant for God.  "My soul, find rest in God".