What feeds your soul and causes your heart to beat more slowly, your breaths to expand more deeply?
What people, places and things cause you to feel more peaceful when you are around them?
What good and beautiful things in this world are you engaged with daily?
Is your soul well nourished?
Is it anorexic, drained by trials and hard circumstances?
God designed our souls to crave certain things. Intimacy with him would be at the top of the list. Authentic times in his Word and in prayer are prime soul food. After that, I believe the soul craves beauty both tangible and intangible. A symphony or work of art. A sunset over the mountains or a lake. A married couple who still hold hands after 65 years of marriage. A mother holding her newborn baby for the first time.
In my decades long search and struggles to find and maintain peace I’ve discovered a few truths.
One is that when I feed my soul regularly with lovely and praiseworthy experiences, I don’t struggle to hang on to my peace.
When I become unbalanced and fill too many hours with dark thoughts of what if’s, critical conversations, jaded and cynical movies and television or the dark news that networks grind out 24/7, my joy and peace deflate like a days old birthday balloon.
That is why I am now very deliberate about connecting deeply with the good and beautiful everyday. You will see on the bottom of my homepage my original photography and a challenge for you to connect with God’s creation every day. This is not a luxury, my friends.
If your soul could speak audibly, it would tell you that connecting with the divine things of this world is a necessity.
The problem is that the voices of our bodies and minds are often so much louder than the whispers of the soul.
If you are struggling to maintain your peace, too little connection with the beauty of this world might be one of the missing links for you. So, I ask again, what feeds your soul? My list includes morning prayer and Bible study, daily walks with husband and doggie, sunsets, lakes and beaches, making music with other artists, watercolor artwork, gardening, and meals and laughter with good friends and family.
There’s more stuff too like seeing people come to Christ for the first time or celebrating a fellow writer who shas achieved one of their big goals. I deliberately place myself in and create environments where these things can happen because I understand that if I don’t, I become somewhat depressed and cynical myself.
If you are serious about maintaining serenity, then feeding your soul what it’s crying out for is essential. For you it might be baking, woodworking, long bike rides, hiking in the woods or rock climbing. Those activities would crush my soul because we are all uniquely designed. Some of mine probably sound dismal to you also. The point is to find those things that make your soul leap for joy and schedule them into your life.
What have you done so far today that nourishes your soul?
What ways did you connect with God and his creation. The prophet Jeremiah said that God brought the Israelites “into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things” (2:7). What good things will you feed your soul today? Feed it well and it will hold onto your peace for you.
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