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Lesson OneSacred Companions on a Sacred Journey: Three Defining Elements of Supernatural Relating3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson TwoSecular vs. Spiritual SoulCare: The Danger of Blurred Distinctions3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson ThreeSoulCare Through Spiritual Direction and Spiritual Friendships: The Biblical Alternative to Psychotherapy3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson FourBeginning Steps in Spiritual Direction3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson FiveThe Rhythm of Spiritual Direction: Following the Spirit As He Releases Supernatural Goodness3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson SixSpiritual Friendship: Pouring the Passion of Christ From Your Heart into Another's3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson SevenThe Sacred Journey: Where Control is Lost, Where Good Dreams Shatter, Where God's Agenda Looks (and Feels) Bad3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson EightReal Church: Two or Three Broken People Agreed on One Purpose3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson NineEntering the Real Church of Supernatural Community: The Covenant of SoulCare3 Activities1 Assessment
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Lesson TenEntering the Real Church of Supernatural Community: A Format for SoulCare3 Activities1 Assessment
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Course Wrap-UpCourse Completion1 Activity1 Assessment
Participants 154
Discussion Questions
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Describe in your own words these two deceptions that cause us to walk away from God. We think we need something other than God in order to be home. We believe we are walking towards God when we are walking away from Him. How have you experienced these deceptions in your life?
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We think we need something other than God to be home. This happens when I do not listen to the Holy Spirit within me or ignore Him. The selfish old nature sees shiny objects of various kinds and I pursue them without praying about it and asking for guidance and considering what scripture teaches about it.
We think we are walking toward God when we are walking away. I did this once in a most disastrous way. I took the verse Eph 4:15 out of context and spoke up in a way that actually did harm to a large number of people in the church I attended. I did not consider all of what scripture has to say about addressing a difference that I had with another Christian. Painful lesson -
I find myself identifying in needing something other than God in order to be home. I tend to clutch very tightly friendships with other girlfriends, to the point of them feeling controlled by me. I bring unhealthy to my relationships by the demand to find life in them instead of God.
It is easy to pursue good teaching, but even this can be a way of walking away from God if I do not engage with Him as I learn.
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We think we need something other than God by believing the lie that there is more or something better. In other words, we God isn’t enough and focus our pursuits on other things to complete us.
We believe that we’re walking to God when we’re really walking away by focusing on striving. We shift our centered thinking from God to works. The thought process is now how we can do and be the best at whatever. We put our energy on that striving goal rather than our relationship with God.
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At times, it is my interruption of what I should be doing according to the bible teaching that causes me to think I am walking towards God and yet struggle from time to time to make sense of what’s going on and why there’s the gap.
From above, my wanting to accomplish what I think would be required to stay on course to be closer to God had become the priority and pulled me away without my knowing until total exhaustion. Then I give up trying and in the quietness, begin to hear God’s voice again. -
I feel, one of the things that stops us from going back home to God is putting petitionary prayer above all other ways of communicating with God. We are forever praying for God to heal us, to fix our marriage or kids, to give us a better job… We rarely show the wisdom or the courage to drop all that and just pray to be more focused on our need and desire to stay in the presence of God. Or, at least, just concentrate on asking God for the fruit of the spirit. Thus, we keep ourselves fixated on our wordly problems, feeling needy and abandoned by God. With that, comes the obsession of trying to fix things on our own. We sing about God’s love in church but we never allocate time to just sitting quietly, contemplating God’s love and actually experiencing it. I’ve experienced this pattern in my own life many many times before.
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Dr. Crabb makes the following observations about the spiritual journey: It is not governed by the law of linearity but by the law of liberty. Lesser dreams (even good ones) must shatter to awaken our appetite for greater dreams. To say that God is in control means that He is moving all things towards an end point that we don’t always properly value or even like. How do these observations help when you are offering spiritual friendsdhip to another?
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“The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom stands and listens for him, and is overjoyed to hear the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must increase; I must decrease.!” (Jn 3:29-30)
As a friend to another, we are merely a friend who comes along side a struggling friend; we stand and listen and am overjoy to hear the bridegroom’s voice. Our role is not to overtake Christ in the person’s life, nor stand in the way of the person’s ‘interaction’ with Christ. This is liberty – a freedom that we needn’t unnecessary put our desires for the person to break out of the situation on ourselves. The dream is God’s dream! It frees me to simply exercise love, grace and patience, with discernment and wisdom from the Lord to restore the person to see a greater love in Christ is far more worthy to embrace than the little dreams we have. -
When I am offering spiritual friendship to another person, the observations by Dr. Crabb help me to understand that every conversation wont end in a smile or a warm and fuzzy feeling. As we spiritually journey together, the Holy Spirit will be leading and opening up our eyes and hearts (not necessarily at the same time) to things we need to embrace or erase. The idea that lesser dreams must shatter to free space for greater dreams in Christ is not a common thought. We either want it all or give up and don’t go after anything. We complain and settle or exhaust ourselves trying to achieve that we think we are supposed to have.
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It helps me to sit with them patiently and listen. They may not have come to this revelation yet-that they don’t properly value God’s direction. It helps me to have patience, grace, and empathy.
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In our journey with we God we cannot depend on what is the legalistic pattern of the right way to go but see where God is leading us which my be out of our comfort zone or seem strange but the path God is directing us to which will wind up being the ultimate best for us.
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Dr. Crabb makes three observations about Eckhart’s quote. Discuss what you think and feel about each. God’s home is now in me. When I walk away from God, I walk away from me. The only way to discover my true self is to come home to God.
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God is as “ constant” as the sun, our lives revolve around Him. When we constantly remind ourselves that my heart is God’s home, we will arrange our lives to rotate around Him and his righteousness. He is the source. We live our lives before the face of God. We know we are His. We find our identity in Him.
When we walk away from Him, we walk away from me… our back is facing Him, hence, we walk in the shadow of ourselves – we lost our identity, purpose in Him. We find our identity and purpose in the things we are walking towards – be it worldly pleasures or achievements. We will look like our idols. (Psalm 135:18)
When we turn back to face God, and walk towards Him. We find our true self in Him.
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God’s home is now in me. God is the center in our hearts, everything we do should be Christ centered. When I walk away from God, I walk away from me. When my focus is on other things, and goals are just for myself, than I am not following God’s wisdom, or following the Gentle Shepherd, I end up straying off the path, like a lost sheep, wondering away and heading for danger, we can be deceived. We seek other things more valuable than God. The only way to discover my true self is to come home to God. God is the only true way come home, through all our pain and difficulties in life, and all that life happens in our hearts and souls, in order to find our true self is to come home to God.
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God’s home is now in me. – He is not just near me, he is with me (within me). I am not alone and he is the source.
When I walk away from God, I walk away from me. This is why people feel lost. When I step outside of God’s will and love, I misunderstand God and his love, and without an understanding and acceptance of both, I’m lost.
The only way to discover my true self is to come home to God. My identify is in Christ. This statement makes being in Christ take on a whole new meaning for me. -
1. God’s home is now in me: This gives me a sense of comfort and familiarity with God. It also draws me to want to return home. It also reminds me that I can walk away from home, but I can never actually get away.
2. When I walk away from God, I walk away from me: This makes me feel convicted and also intrigued. It also makes sense because when I’m not looking to God for my satisfaction, I often feel lost to myself.
3. The only way to discover my true self is to come home to God: This feel warm and inviting to me. It also gets me excited. I find it interesting because our culture these days is all about finding yourself and being true to yourself, but that can only happen when we come home to God.
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Those were very profound observations. Just being reminded that God actually lives in me makes me ashamed of all the things I don’t do because I feel I can’t which in actuality I can because God ‘s home is in me. And walking away from God puts a halt to my growth because I walk away from myself. And the only way I will have the power to become my true self is to come back to God.
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We don’t return to God for several reasons, among them: We do not see our flesh dynamics. We lose hope. What does the phrase “flesh dynamics” mean? When have you experienced these hindrances to returning to God?
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The flesh dynamics are when we look to things on this earth to give us the fulfillment that only God can provide. I continue to feel as though I want God, but I also want things to be comfortable and easy, and I’ll serve Him along the way, and everything will be just great that way. But it seems that He knows that those things become an idol to me, and He’s been stripping things away so that He is my only hope. I do feel that I lose hope some days, but I also feel that He’s all I have to cling to in the midst of the hard times.
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Flesh dynamics means trying to make life work without God, in our own flesh. I often find it hard to return to God and live in union with Him, when I am succeeding in making life work in the flesh. It is when I am at the end of my natural abilities and life is not working that I more easily turn to Him and seek Him.
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I have experienced flesh dynamics as the parts of me that are afraid, and without faith that whatever I am longing for- God is not sufficient to relieve the pain of not having it.
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“Flesh dynamics” is the tension of our fallen nature with that of God’s original design.
The battle within us that wrestle to choose our ways to make outrage life work, our pleasures met APART from God.
The greatest hindrance to return to God is when our ways and the ways of God looks more pleasing than that of God.
(Reminded how Eve fell cos her eyes saw what was more pleasing to her, and doubted God’s way is better) -
Flesh dynamics: When we are in a middle of a spiritual battle, middle of a crisis, in the middle of discouragement or loosing hope. Finding ways to make life work without God. When we have conflict with family, friends, or at work, or when we feel irritable, stressed, or don’t know how to solve a difficult issue in life. When have you experienced the hindrances to returning to God? When I am in the middle of striving to do better, perform better, when I set the bars really high and I have goals and things in life I yet to accomplish. Sometimes or many times it is hard to return to God, when I am extremely stressed or in a middle of a conflict, by believing sometimes that I need to be always on top and have my life in order. Sometimes these hindrances keep me from returning to God. I need to surrender to Christ and let Him gently lead me along my journey.
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Flesh dynamics war against our spirit. They are the feelings and thoughts that go against word of God. If I base my decisions on how I am feeling or what I want, my life becomes about me pleasing and protecting myself instead of living for God and serving others. If I become my own source , losing hope is inevitable because I am not God. Believing the lie that we are in control causes us to try harder instead of surrendering to God. I have experienced this in my need to be a better wife, mom and teacher. I found myself trying to learn more, do more to ‘fix’ things or do what other people were doing instead of surrendering those areas to Christ and drawing closer to him.
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Dr. Crabb wants a revolution in his life and in the church where our desire for God actually becomes stronger than our desire to fix our problems. To what extent is that revolution occurring in your life?
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I am more and more frequently sensing the ache deep in my soul that nothing in this world satisfies. I sense that what I am really looking for is God himself. I find that God is here, walks with me, hears me and often those are not really connected to my circumstances improving. Even in those frustrating circumstances I sense satisfaction, because it is God I want more than the “fix” of circumstances.
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Everywhere
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Three years ago, when my brother took his life, I felt tremendous guilt. I was praying about it and ‘doing’ what I read to do in Christian self-help books, but I couldn’t shake the guilt. Nothing got to the core of my guilt.
A few months later, I listened to the daily COVID 19 update on TV from our NZ Director General of Health, who was a Christian. The press were critical of the government’s handling of the virus, and the Director General said, ‘Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.’ It was a quote from Soren Kierkegaard.
It was meant as a word to the nation, but the Holy Spirit winged it into my soul and set me free from the guilt I carried. Now I am waiting for the Holy Spirit to show me the way forward for another emotion I keep experiencing that I know is not what God wants me to feel. Again, all the Christian self-help books tell me things should do, but I am waiting on God for a revelation from the Holy Spirit to set me free.
It has been during these courses that I fully realised the spiritual dynamics of what happened with my guilt and now I know He is my only hope of being set free from this other emotion that has recently occurred regularly in my life and makes me feel bad about myself. I wait in expectant hope. -
As I continue in this teaching on SoulCare, I have become convinced that this is lacking in most churches and is much needed. This teaching has certainly given me the perspective and resources I need to see that awakening the God image in a person is more effective at fixing what is wrong than just providing a process to fix problem but does not fix the person.
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At age 67 I am able to say I’m farther down that road than I was for a long time. Difficult events in life have taught me greater dependence on Him and confidence that He is in control even when it doesnt make sense from my perspective.
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When did you last sense a longing to have another person walk with you as you walk home to God? What did you do about that longing?
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