4. Caring for the Neglected Places in Your Soul

This is going to be kind. It's going to be gracious. But we are talking here in session four about caring for the neglected places in our souls. And before we jump into the pause this week, I want to set it up because we're going to use the pause in a different way than we have before.

We've been exploring how this crazy world continues to push us into the shallows of our own hearts and souls, how technology, media, and our consumption and obsession with it are literally changing the structure of our brains, shortening our attention spans, and making us sort of scattered. And then you add to that just the insane pace of life, and what we find is that we are not able to be present—truly present—to our own life and to the people around us.

Much of this experiment, much of this book, and much of my writing on this came out of self-discovery. And one of those moments for me was with my grandchildren. Stacy and I are grandparents now, and we have some wee ones, two little girls and a little boy, and I love their visits. I love being with them. But what I noticed was that I could be present to them for about five minutes, and then I just found myself preoccupied with other things—wanting to check my phone, wanting to get online, wanting to think about work. I couldn't be there for them. I couldn't be soul to soul, life to life.

And when you are with little ones, I mean, it is timeless. They're not watching the clock, but I was, and I didn't like that. I didn't like the shallowing of my own soulful experience of life. So that's what we're exploring. That's what we're trying to get out of. That's what we're trying to get our lives back from—more of God, more of our soul, more of life together.

And we've got to be honest: we are actually in love with the distraction. There's something in human nature that just doesn't want to deal with the more difficult things. Okay? Now, be frank—how many of you have heard that little tick, tick, tick, or thump, thump, thump coming from the engine or the transmission of your car and just ignored it for months, hoping it would go away and fix itself? How many of us have done this with our health? We ignore the painful little hitch, the loss of breath, the troubling indigestion, the lump, the few extra pounds crying out for attention, and we just ignore it for years, hoping that it'll magically fix itself.

We all do this. My childhood bedroom was downstairs underneath the upstairs master bathroom, and anytime somebody took a shower or flushed the toilet up there, you could hear the water flushing down through the pipes in the walls downstairs. It was sort of like a water attraction in a theme park, sort of like a new Disney thing under the sea. Anyway, I was upstairs one day, and I noticed that the toilet had become a little bit loose on its foundation, and I thought, "Uh-oh, I hope that thing's not leaking." And I went downstairs and looked up at the ceiling, and, oh no, sure enough, there was a water stain on the ceiling.

So, I got the ladder and some tools to figure out how bad this was. Luckily, it was not bad, and it wasn't recent. I thought to myself, "Okay, I need to take care of that," and I let it go for an entire year. Now, to be honest, I forgot. But to be truly honest, I wanted to forget. I just didn't want the hassle of dealing with that.

This is so much more true for our souls in this crazy hour. With the pace of life and the distractions, it's just so much easier to push the more difficult things aside: issues of loss and disappointment, issues of unmet dreams and expectations. It's much easier to just send all that to the back of the bus, but the problem is it catches up with us. Depression is now the leading cause of disability worldwide, and with it, there's been a rise in anxiety and a host of other emotional issues, our need for pharmaceuticals, and the tragic epidemic of suicide. That’s the neglected soul crying out for attention.

I mentioned to you last time my Montana road trip with God—that Jesus invited me to take—and the drinking in of beauty and nature. I just needed to detox from my world. I brought my fishing gear along because, as a fisherman, I thought, "This is going to be days of just hours of fishing." Two days I spent fishing, and I caught one fish. Finally, I'm like, "Jesus, what's with that?" And He says, "John, this isn't a fishing trip." I'm like, "It's not?" He's like, "No, this is a soul recovery trip. You're not here for relief. You're here to address some things you've neglected in your soul."

And I knew He was right. I knew I knew He was right. I had lost my best friend to cancer. We had lost a grandchild in a terrible miscarriage. We had lost the family dog—heartbreaking things, a whole host of relational disappointments. And I had just pushed all that aside in the mad pace of my life, and Jesus was seizing the moment to say, "Let's go back and deal with that."

There’s a beautiful picture of this in the Gospel of John, chapter 21. You might recall the story. This is after the resurrection of Jesus, and the boys have gone fishing. Jesus appears on the beach and asks them if they've caught anything, and then He performs the second miraculous catch of fish. The boys come to shore, they have breakfast together, and then Jesus has this beautiful encounter with Peter. Now, let’s remember why. The last time Peter saw Jesus, he was denying Him three times on that horrible, horrible night before the crucifixion. Afterwards, the scripture says Peter went out and wept bitterly. Grief, shame, heartache, self-hatred—all of that has gone unaddressed in Peter's life.

Now, Jesus is back, and the boys are together again, but Jesus knows that He can't leave that unaddressed in Peter's soul. So let’s pick up the gospel story there: When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" "Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Feed my lambs." Again, Jesus said, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you." Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep." The third time, He said to him, "Simon, son of John, do you love me?" Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you."

This is an extraordinarily beautiful story. How many times did Peter deny Jesus? Three. How many times did Jesus ask Peter, "Do you love me?" Three. Do you see what Jesus is doing? He's pushing into that grief, shame, regret, self-reproach. He's bringing it to the surface so that He and Peter can be reconciled in this place. In other places, they’re fine, but it’s here, in the neglected place, that Peter needs care. He needs restoration. I absolutely love that about God. He will not let us go on very long, neglecting important places in our souls.

And here's why: in our search to find life, to get our life back, in our search to love and live and laugh, to be present to others and escape this madness—in our search for more of God—we often can't find it because we are looking with so little of ourselves. Over time, the shallification of our souls, we’re like stream banks that have just been eroded, leaving little of us remaining. That’s why we can’t find the life we’re looking for and why we often can’t experience more of God. And so Jesus won’t leave us there.

I mentioned our family dog. I love dogs. I’m a dog person. And in the course of my life, we've always had dogs. When I was single, I had this beautiful dog named Joshua. He was a wilderness dog, part Border Collie, part Pyrenees, and we went backpacking together and on road trips. He was never on a leash in his entire life. He was an amazing dog. And when he died, I thought to myself, "That's it. I just don't want to face that again." And so, it took a lot of years—family, children—and then finally, it was time for a family dog. We got this great golden retriever named Scout. He was so fun to be with. He loved canoeing and hiking and had a taste for underwear. He was a hoot to be around.

And when we lost Scout, it was like, no more. And it took years again for us to get our third family dog. I just buried him a few months ago. And what happens is that over time, through our disappointments, frustrations, heartbreaks, and unfulfilled dreams, we just leave parts of our souls behind. Less and less of us show up for the game. And so Jesus circles back around to us to say, "Look, we've got to take care of that."

And here's the thing: this mad world is never going to encourage you to take care of your soul, to care for the neglected places in your soul. Did you know that the average corporate bereavement leave for a spouse is four days? Four days. That is madness. I mean, you haven't even begun to breathe for four days. You are concussed with the trauma of the loss. The world just wants us to get on with it—just put all that aside and get on with doing.

So, Jesus circles back around. As Psalm 34:18 says, "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Jesus cares about your losses, disappointments, and grief, and He will help you as He did with Peter. He will help you attend to the neglected places in your soul so that more of you can come back and be part of this life.

All right, now we're ready to practice our pause. Oftentimes, what I will use my pause for is to invite Jesus into the neglected places in my soul. Some recent frustrations, some losses I’ve skipped over, some disappointments I had to blow by because of the pace of life—when I have a chance to pause, okay?

So, what I want to ask you for a moment is to think about, what are the disappointments that you've had to just blow by in the past year? Now, I'm not suggesting you go on a witch hunt. This isn’t about uncovering every failure and disappointment in your life, every piece of heartache. No, let's just find one thing that we can invite Jesus into. What relational disappointment, lost dream or career frustration have you experienced that you just haven't had a chance to invite God into? We're going to use the pause for that.

So, as we practice the pause now, go to those places. Ask Jesus to show you, "Lord, where are you coming for me? Where have I neglected my soul?" I know that’s a difficult thing to do, and it’s crazy to suggest that we do it in 60 seconds, but we're not done. I'm going to help you care for your soul right here in this session.

The first thing is just to identify and begin to name neglected places in our souls. Because then, what we want to do is learn the process of giving Jesus access to these places. So, back to my Montana fishing trip, which wasn’t a fishing trip. What I began to do was journal. Jesus said, "Just start writing down your losses. Start naming the things." And it wasn’t hard. I mean, there were some very big ones, but there were some small ones, too, that I had neglected. And then, one by one, Jesus said, "Now invite me in."

This is a very, very beautiful passage from the book of Revelation, very famous. You all probably remember this. Jesus says, "I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in." So, here's the key to emotional healing, all right? The door opens from the inside. We can't ask Jesus, "Would you go take care of that thing?" I mean, I know there’s that loss I suffered or that dream that wasn’t fulfilled, that desire that was crushed—"Would you go take care of that?" It’s not hostless negotiation, right? You don’t get to stay three blocks down the street and ask Christ to go in, all right? The door opens from the inside.

The reason He wants us to enter these places like He made Peter enter the place of his sorrow and grief is because we open the door to Christ from inside our own soul. Okay, we have to be present to it to allow Jesus to come in.

So now, I want to pray with you and just give you a feel of how I do this in my own life. So, you’ve named one, two, or three neglected places—losses, disappointments, unattended griefs. Now, let’s invite Christ in. So, here’s how I pray:

"Lord Jesus, forgive me for neglecting this for so long. I'm sorry, Lord. Forgive me for neglecting this for so long. You know this very well, but I have been distant from my own soul, and I want to inhabit my soul again. And so, I come back to this place, I come back to this loss, or grief, or disappointment, and here in this place, as I'm feeling it, I invite you in. I open the door from the inside. Jesus, come in. I give you permission to restore my soul here. I know you wait for me to let you in. And so, I let you in now, Jesus. Come to me and meet me here. Restore my soul. Restore my soul. In your name, I pray."

Now, friends, that’s just a beginning, and it’s something to learn to practice over time, but you would be surprised how much beautiful work Jesus can do if you will just inhabit your own soul, come back to the neglected places, and then open the door from the inside and let Him in. Now, I understand—some things may be surfacing that you need someone to talk to, and you might want to go to your pastor, priest, or a Christian therapist and really talk through those things, and I recommend that highly. But over time, I found that simple prayer of inviting Christ in can do really good things for your soul.

Now, there's more in the book, and there's more in your study guide to guide you on where to go this week with this, but I want to close with this. When I lost my best friend to cancer a couple of years ago, I was very aware of the soul care process. I was very in touch with my loss and my grief, and I just began to pay attention—what heals the soul and what doesn't? I began to make a list, and I found it to be very, very interesting: helpful and unhelpful, okay?

Helpful: Generous amounts of sunshine, everything living and green, long walks, lonesome country roads, swimming, beauty, music, friendly dogs, compassion, not expecting myself to produce the same level of work I normally accomplish in a day, yard work, building a fence.

Unhelpful: Grocery stores, malls, television, traffic, draining people wanting to talk to me, airports, the news—especially politics, social media, and your typical dose of movie violence.

Now, the thing is, which of those lists make up most of our average week, right? Do you see how important it is to learn to unplug from the madness and care for your soul?

Friends, the good news is we can live as more wholehearted human beings. He really does restore our souls. We get more of our life back. We can experience more of God. Oh, and by the way, we have a new member of our family. It’s a choice—a deliberate choice on my part to stay open, to keep my heart and soul open to hope and joy and life. And God is using him to restore our souls.

4o