Lecture

An obvious thought recently struck me. Every day, all over the world, people are engaged in conversation. People are talking to each other. Now, just imagine for a moment, what would happen if a few people, followers of Jesus, as they engaged in conversation, began thinking well about the people with whom they were talking.

Suppose people, as they interacted with others, cared deeply about the souls of people they were chatting with. Suppose they became very intentional in their conversations. What would happen if their concern for other people’s souls were both well informed biblically and blatantly supernatural? What would happen if there was a passion coming out of one person’s soul as he was talking to another, as she was talking to another, and this passion that was coming out was literally the passion of God, the passion of the Holy Spirit? And what would happen if, as they were talking with somebody else, they became aware of a wisdom that allowed them to think about the souls of the people that they were talking with?

We’re talking about a passion/wisdom model of SoulCare. And I envision, all over the world, people having supernatural conversations. I envision, all over the world, people becoming Word and Spirit people—people who think biblically about life, people who think biblically about themselves, about each other, and about what is really happening in us as we live our lives, as we bump into problems and experience heartache.

Do we know what it means to think biblically? What would happen if you were thinking biblically about the nature of the journey as you were talking to somebody else as they shared what was happening in their journey? What would happen if the passions that were coming out of you were the passions of the Lord, the passions of the Spirit? I’m trusting that because of this course in SoulCare, that we’ll see a revolution starting with me and you, and a few other followers of Jesus all across the world, people who become people of the Word, who understand what the Word says about the interior world of each of us, and people of the Spirit, people who know what it means to be prompted by the Spirit and to release the very passions of God into the lives of each other.

That’s why I’m teaching this course in SoulCare. I want to see a third reformation. The first reformation in the early days of the church established the doctrine of the Trinity and helped us see that God himself is an eternal community and that nothing matters in all the world quite as much as how we relate. Relationships are central to life. That’s what the first reformation, thousands of years ago, taught us from the nature of the Trinity. The second reformation, the one we’re most familiar with, sparked by Martin Luther, made clear the doctrine of justification and helped us see that God offers an unbreakable relationship with Himself as a gift, but a costly gift; it cost Him the life of His son. The time is ripe, I believe for another reformation, for a third reformation, for another awakening, for a revival if you will.

This reformation, this next revolution that I’m envisioning has to do with how we think about sanctification. We need to understand what is happening beneath the surface of people’s lives; we need to understand why we’re having so much trouble changing; why we’re so miserable much of the time; why so many of our lives are lived full of pressure; why we don’t feel intimate with many people; why we’re not deeply connected; why our church experience is so often an experience of disconnect as opposed to connect; we need to know what’s happening inside of people’s lives and we need to know how the Spirit is working in the souls of God’s people to change us—because we better see what’s going on in us, and what the Spirit is doing, and we’ll better see what we can do, how we can provide SoulCare for each other when we talk with each other, and maybe we’ll get a different kind of conversation going, when friends meet for coffee, when people take a long drive together, maybe even in the few minutes in between church and Sunday school. What kind of conversations are possible? Well-informed, supernatural conversations that change people’s lives; that’s what SoulCare is about and that’s what this course is all about.

This is the second course on the topic of SoulCare, and I want to spend this first presentation reviewing what I said in the first course. In the first course we talked about foundations of SoulCare, a basic model. And if you’ve not seen that course then it’d be wise to go back and to take a look at it.

I want to review all that I said, very briefly, in the previous course. I want to give you what I believe are ten key concepts that form the foundation for all of our thinking about SoulCare. So, let me review these ten key concepts and then we’ll move into the second course—the substance of the second course which is no longer looking at the basic model (that’s course one), but now building on the ten key concepts of the basic model, asking ourselves the question: how do we understand people? We know we want to enter the battle for people’s, souls we want to get in their interior worlds. How can we understand people and their problems? That’s course number two.

Let me concisely, and I hope simply, review the ten key concepts that we talked about in course one. Concept number one, key concept number one can be summarized with two words: turning chairs. Perhaps you recall the image of people so often sitting facing, not each other, but facing away from each other and so often we sit on porches, metaphorically, and we never turn our chairs to face each other and get to know each other. The first key concept is we’ve got to turn our chairs because every one of us longs for a kind of relationship where we’re deeply known, where we’re richly explored, were we’re profoundly discovered, and where we’re powerfully touched. You and I long, we can’t help it, we’re image bearers, we bear the image of a Trinitarian God who Himself is involved in a perfect relationship, and because we bear His image, we long for a certain kind of relationship where we want to be know without rejection, where we want to be explored with real curiosity, where we want to be discovered with excitement.

Isn’t it something when somebody is talking with you and discovers something about who you really are, and their eyes just go wide, and their souls begin to jump and there’s a sense in which you feel, “My gosh you’re seeing something in me that excites you. That’s incredible; I didn’t know anything was in me that was that exciting.” Imagine conversations where we’re known, explored, discovered, and then touched. Where another person moves into our lives with the power of the Spirit. Most often we relate superficially; most often we’re involved in relationships, sometimes in our small groups, where after years of being in a small group or being in a relationship, we don’t feel all that well-known. We’ve hardly ever been explored; there’s such little curiosity about each other’s lives—what’s really happening—we simply catch up and never move more deeply. There’s no real discovery of what’s unique about us, who we really are; we’re not touched and released to be who God has called us to be. Key concept number one: turning chairs.

A vision, a longing, what could be in community. Key concept number two is a compelling vision. As we enter each other’s lives—as I get to know you, as you get to know me, as two people have lunch together, as a small group meets—as we begin to enter each other’s lives, it’s possible to enter each other’s lives with a confident hope that something unbelievably wonderful is going to happen. It’s possible to enter each other’s lives even when we hear somebody talk about incredible difficulties. As I was chatting just very recently with a brother in Christ, who, as he put it, his life is unraveling. His comment to me was, “My life is absolutely unraveling.” Is it possible for me to hear a man in the middle of incredible struggle and feel an excitement because there’s a compelling vision that the Spirit gives me as I talk with him? What is the compelling vision that is possible? That’s key concept number two. And the compelling vision really can be reduced to this: not that your problems are going to go away, not that your wife who’s having an affair is going to repent and come back and you have a wonderful marriage (if that takes place, praise God in joy); not that your kids are going to be all that you want them to be (if they’re walking with the Lord, celebrate God’s grace in your life); not that health is going to be returned (if it is, again, praise God), but the compelling vision is not that you’ll have a better life, the compelling vision is that there’s a better hope. That in the core of my being there’s an appetite for God that because of the way we connect, that appetite can be stirred to the point where it becomes stronger than every other appetite. For that no matter what is happening in my life, no matter what difficulties I am facing, that I really want to know God with passion, interest, excitement, desperateness. The compelling vision is: maybe because of our conversations, we can want God more than we want any lesser blessing. Key concept number two: compelling vision.

Key concept number three: inside look. In order to stir that appetite, in order to begin connecting, to turn our chairs and to move toward this compelling vision, in order for the kind of reformation that I have in mind to actually take place, a reformation in how we grow to become more like Christ together; in order for all these wonderful things I’m talking about to actually happen, there’s a bit of a hitch to the process—it’s tough. The process begins by getting very, very honest about who we are; the process begins by no longer looking at our own lives, or the lives of each other superficially. The process begins with an inside look. The process begins by entering the depths of each other’s souls; something we’re terrified to do. I don’t want to let you in because I’m not sure you’re going to like what you see and I’m not sure what you’re going to do with what you see. Are you going to judge me, get mad at me, give me a kind of sympathy, which will irritate me? Are you just going to give me hugs and I’m going to feel condescended to? I’m not sure if I want you to see me, so the inside look that is required is very difficult, very risky and, for that reason, is rarely taken.

But we’re going to have to look beneath the appearances. We’re going to have to go beneath social chatter; beneath what we normally let others see into the reality of who we are. If this idea of SoulCare is going to become a reality as opposed to a lovely thought, if SoulCare is going to actually grip the church, and make the church into the dynamic place it was meant to be, then we’re going to have to face the reality of our own insides. The good, and there is good if you’re a believer—if you aren’t a believer there’s incredible potential for good, there’s uniqueness—but, whoever you are, believer, unbeliever, there’s not only something that’s good, or something that’s potentially good, but there’s things that are bad, and there’s things that are downright ugly. You’ve got to face the good, the bad, and the ugly as the saying goes. Jesus put it very clearly when He said we’re never going to clean the outside of the cup and dish until we attend to what’s inside the cup and dish. We’ve got to take a deep look. We’ve got to see what’s really happening inside and only when that gets dealt with supernaturally will our outsides ever be what they need to be. We’ve got to clean the inside. What’s going on beneath the surface as we turn our chairs toward each other? What do we see that’s going on that requires an inside look?

Key concept number four: ruling passions. When we look inside ourselves, when I look inside of me, the first thing we’re primarily looking for is to see what passions are ruling within my heart, within my soul. What am I motivated by at this moment? Just very recently I was engaged in a conversation with somebody in front of a class that I am teaching on the topic of spiritual direction and SoulCare. And as I sat in front of the class that I’ve been teaching for a number of weeks to actually engage in the process that I’ve been talking about, what passions do you suppose were ruling in me? Was there some passion that was saying, “I better show these people I know what I am doing? I’ve been teaching about this I better handle this well. By the time this conversation is over, everybody in this room better be impressed with how good I am at this.” Is that the kind of passion that’s inside of me? If it is it’s ugly. It isn’t a passion of love. It isn’t a passion of the Spirit. It’s the passion of being a people pleaser. It’s the passion of being an idolater.

You’ve got to discern what the ruling passions are within us. Are we consumed by a love, by a divine love? Is there a reality to this participation in the divine nature that releases out of me a care, a love, a burden, a desire, for representing Christ well? Does that dominate in me as I talk with somebody else versus trying to look good or think of something intelligent to say, or coming up with something brilliant and impressing other people? Is there a dominant passion that says, “I want to represent my Lord well. I want people to see what He is like because of my involvement with Him, and I want this person to be blessed, I want this person to be drawn to the Lord Jesus”? Is that my ruling passion? That’s the second topic. What are the ruling passions that are within us? Are they of the spirit or are they of the flesh?

Key concept number five: this is really hard—the concept of brokenness. An honest look inside of our souls, our ruling passions, at why a husband walks in the door a few minutes late, sees a scowl on his wife’s face and goes over and gives her a big hug and a kiss—when he looks at his real ruling passion, is he looking to bless his wife or is he looking to occupy her mouth with something other than a scolding from her to him? Is there a passion within to control, to keep him out of trouble, “if I give her a kiss maybe she’ll get off my back”?

An honest look at our inside passions is never flattering, because we realize how easily and how often we disguise our self-preoccupation in attractive clothing. We realize how often what we’re really committed to is not God and not somebody else; we’re not loving God or loving others, we’re really burdened about our own well being and we’re doing that which takes care of ourselves and when we start seeing what’s happening inside of us there’s a brokenness because we’re facing things that we don’t know how to change. It’s just who we seem to be; we feel helpless, we feel hopeless in the middle of recognizing what is happening inside of us. Our need for power in people’s lives, our desire to impact other people, we disguise in attractive clothing and we call it the passion to bless, the passion to help, when in fact all we’re doing is looking to be powerful.

When you really see what’s happening inside of you, when I see what’s happening inside of me, there’s something that just is desperate. Call it brokenness. The realization that I am not who God longs for me to be, and I cannot be who God longs for me to be, and who I long to be. I cannot be who I long to be, who I was designed to be, without supernatural help. I’m broken, I’m dependent, I’m desperate, and I simply come before God and say, “This is the mess you have to work with. Is there any grace that you can help me with in my time of desperate need?” The experience of brokenness is required for SoulCare. That’s so important because too often we think of things like SoulCare or Christian counseling, or spiritual direction as a series of techniques to learn and to master, and it’s not that at all. We need to become broken. And in our brokenness you realize that you don’t measure up to God’s standard of love, and as a result, a brokenness sets in that leads us to confess our moral inadequacy and our absolute dependency. Brokenness, the fifth key concept.

The sixth key concept that we talked about in course number one: self-need versus soul-thirst. Self-need, needs revolving around me and my desire to feel good about myself, versus the deepest thirst of my soul. What do I long for in the presence of God versus what do I really want from other people so I can feel good about myself? Self-need versus soul-thirst. We want to feel good about ourselves, and when that want, when that desire to feel good about ourselves is central, that want becomes a demand that I choose to call self-need. When we engage with others out of self-need, it seems reasonable to us—after all, we want to feel good about ourselves, what’s wrong with not wanting to hurt, what’s wrong with feeling better?—and so we use each other to see to it that we feel good in the presence of each other. There’s a demand that our needs be met. There’s a movement towards other people that we might disguise under the rubric of SoulCare, but, in fact, as we’re relating to each other what’s really happening is I’m demanding that this conversation go in a way that my needs for self-esteem are met and when that’s my approach to relationships there’s no humility and there’s no power; the Spirit is quenched and no real SoulCare takes place. It’s illegitimate. And it ruins any effort at SoulCare. Out of self-need arises bad ruling passions.

In a hunger to know God, a hunger to become like the Lord, a hunger to relate intimately and deeply with people for the glory and the pleasure of God, and for the blessing in the growth of others, that’s what I mean by soul-thirst. There’s something very deep inside of my soul, a core energy that longs to be more like God, that longs to know Him, that longs to encounter Him, that longs to honor Him. That’s soul-thirst, and when that thirst of the deepest part of the human soul is dominant within my life, that’s where the good ruling passions come from. So our sixth key concept is self-need versus soul-thirst.

Key concept number seven: curiosity and vision. Out of self-need comes a desire to analyze people. I want to feel bright, I want to feel competent, I want to feel adequate, I want to know what I am doing, and I want you to know that I know what I am doing so out of self-need, the desire for me to look good, I am going to figure you out, I’m going to analyze, I’m going to take courses in counseling that will give me the kind of insight I need to satisfy my own needs. Out of self-need comes a desire to analyze people, and a passion to change people.

It’s pretty tough when you’re looking to be in a relationship with somebody who’s struggling, to relate to them in a way that they won’t feel any impact. There’s no power, and so out of self-need comes a desire to make an impact that says because of what I am doing I want you to be better. Are you changing, are you growing, are you different because of me? Happens all the time. That’s a desire to analyze; it is the exact opposite of what I mean by curiosity.

When you share something with me, if I’m operating out of soul-thirst then there’s going to be a profound curiosity within me that’s not going to try to figure you out, that’s not going to analyze you, but that’s going to be very, very eager to know you. I’m going to be just attracted to the fact that here’s a human being and I get to enter their lives a little bit; man I’d love to know what’s happening in you. If you give me the privilege, I’d love to explore all that’s going on in your soul. I’m not here to analyze and figure you out and put you in a diagnostic box and give you ten techniques that will make you better by tomorrow, I just want to explore what’s happening and because I believe in God, and because I believe in the Gospel of Christ, and because I believe in the indwelling Holy Spirit, I want to discover how God is working in your heart right now, what a thrill to see God present in your heart, in the middle of all that’s bad. And then, might it be possible that what is alive within me might come out and touch you? Is there a curiosity that says I want to enter the battle for your soul; I want to know, explore, discover and touch? And as I do that, is there a confidence that God is moving you in a direction? Is there an excitement within me that says that as I’m curious about you, I know that God is moving you towards something? I’m curious about the presence of God in your life, and I’m excited about the movement of God in your life. Curiosity and vision. When is the last time you had a conversation with somebody who was deeply curious about you and held a high vision about how God was working in your life? Key concept number seven.

Key concept number eight: wisdom. Effective SoulCare requires not only the Spirit’s passion—it certainly requires that—it requires not only the Spirit’s passion ruling in our heart, leading to expressing soul-thirst, through curiosity and vision and all these earlier concepts; in addition to the Spirit’s passion ruling in our hearts we really need to have the Spirit’s wisdom as revealed in the Scriptures to guide us as we enter the soul of another.

One of the things that happens, and I’m sure you’ve experienced this as you’ve had conversations with people, you know that you get pretty confused sometimes. Somebody shares that they’re feeling dry spiritually; somebody shares that they just can’t get close to their husband; somebody shares that their child is at odds with them and they don’t know how to break the bind and you’re sitting there saying, “I don’t know how to understand this; I don’t have any wisdom about this.”

I suggest that for effective SoulCare to happen we need to have a roadmap. We need to know what we’re looking for when we pull back the surface and enter into the depths of somebody’s soul. We need to have a roadmap to give us some indication of what we can expect to find of what’s most important to find, and what to do with what we find. We need wisdom as we move into the murky depths of a person’s hidden interior world. And because we need wisdom, in course number one I sketched a basic strategy, I sketched out a basic model that hopefully we can keep in mind as we engage with each other; not in a way that eliminates naturalness, not in a way that makes us live by a technique, but in a way that kind of guides us with the wisdom of the Scriptures. Key concept number eight: wisdom.

Key concept number nine: reframing. Put a frame around something else, than what we normally put a frame around. When we’re engaged in conversations of SoulCare, what often happens is this: somebody will make known a journeying reality, some reality in their journey to God, something that’s happening in their life and it’s hard perhaps, and we put the frame around that and we say, “Let’s talk about that. Can we solve this problem?”

Effective SoulCare shifts the focus to something more important than the immediate reality. It doesn’t ignore the importance of the fact that you just discovered you had cancer; it doesn’t ignore the importance of the reality that you just lost your job and you can’t pay your bills; it doesn’t ignore that, but it says if we’re going to experience the power of God in the middle of dealing with these journeying realities, we’re going to have to reframe and think about something else. We’re going to have to shift our attention to the story of the soul, not to the specific reality of the journey. We need to shift our attention to the story of the soul and to encourage people to enter their own story and to take an inside look to see their deepest story and to understand what’s happening in parts of their lives that most of us rarely attend to. In SoulCare conversations the topic shifts from what happened yesterday and how do you handle it to what’s going on in your life more deeply, beneath the surface what’s happening: reframing.

Key concept number ten: the power of SoulCare. With all my heart I believe, because of what the Scriptures teach, that you and I can become agents of the Spirit to stir people from where they are to where they could be and where they long to be. We can become agents of the Spirit to actually encourage meaningful movement by understanding the root problem, by identifying the real battle in somebody’s soul, by exposing what’s wrong and what’s difficult in a way that a person responds with, “Yeah, that’s what I do but that’s not what I want.” And then to touch the life that is in another person in a way that releases it; the result is power.

Ten basic concepts of a passion/wisdom model of SoulCare—that was course number one, that’s the foundation for understanding people and problems which we’ll begin to look at in presentation number two.