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. The ultimate reality behind human dissatisfaction is sinful souls that have been cut off from the God we were made to rest in. That’s why we’re dissatisfied.
Good habits are enormously freeing – we accomplish good things almost on autopilot. One study from Duke University found that more than 40 percent of the actions people take every day aren’t decisions, but habits. Good habits free us, but when sin becomes a habit, our souls lose their freedom.
Self-improvement is no more God’s plan than self-salvation. God’s plan is not just for us to be saved by grace – it is for us to live by grace.
Repenting of our sin is never despairing of our sin; it is always done in hope.
The world conspires against our souls by blinding us to the depth and glory of their God-given design and tempting us to be satisfied with immediate gratification.
A very simple way to guard your soul is to ask yourself, “Will this situation block my soul’s connection to God?
The Spirit wants to make you threatening to all the forces of injustice and apathy and complacency that keep our world from flourishing.
The most important thing about you,” Dallas would often say, “is not the things that you achieve; it is the person that you become.
Flourishing is not measured by outward signs such as income, possessions, or attractiveness. It means becoming the person he he had in mind in creating you. Flourishing means moving toward God’s best version of you.
God never grows two people the same way. God is a hand-crafter, not a mass-producer.
When you discover your strengths, you are learning an indispensible part of what it means to be made in the image of God.
When you help other people discover their strengths, you are helping the image of God to be restored in another human being.
Somebody said that if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.
Going through open doors means I will have to be able to trust God with my future when the path I’m called to take does not look like the obvious one.
Author and former seminary professor Neal Plantinga once said something amazing about our capacity for addiction. He said it shows that we were wired for ecstasy. Not the drug, but pure, ecstatic joy. Our ceaseless craving for more, though it can kill us when unredeemed, may be a hint of the joy that we were made for when the soul finds its center in God.
The more concerned you are about your own fulfillment, the less fulfilled you will be.
To paraphrase a line from a movie: There will be great pain, and there will be great joy. In the end, joy wins. So if joy has not yet won, it is not yet the end. Jesus is crucified. The pain is overwhelming – not the end. Jesus is risen – the joy is overwhelming.
Ironically, the more obsessed we are with our selves, the more we neglect our souls.
Jesus was often busy, but never hurried.
One of the most impressive aspects of Jesus is how he was impressed by unimpressive people.