An encounter with Almighty God, Creator of heaven and earth, cannot help but touch us in our entirety — our emotions, intellects, and even bodies. But in addition to calling us to love God with our hearts, minds, and strength, Jesus calls us to also employ our souls in this supreme endeavor. We're not quite sure what "the soul" is exactly, but for the sake of this column, let's say it is that part of us that most directly processes spiritual experiences, that mysterious part of us that connects in some immediate way with, as the mystics put it, "Ultimate Reality."

As we begin another Lent, it seems fitting to meditate on the state of our souls. And many will do that, and all for the good. But I suspect this will be a mistake for others. Instead, let me suggest that caring for our souls might be the most significant thing we can give up for Lent.

We shouldn't give up thinking about our souls altogether — any more than we should abandon pondering our minds or our bodies. Part of the human adventure is to understand ourselves, the mysterious and divine gift that is us. You are not going to find someone who writes a column called "Soulwork" suggesting indifference to the soul!

But Lent is that season of the church year when we deal with those thoughts and habits and addictions that get in the way of loving God. For many in our narcissistic culture, soul care is somewhere between an obsessive-compulsive disorder and an addiction.

Given our natural fascination with ourselves, it's hard to write about the soul without ending up talking about the self and stuff that makes us feel better about ourselves. The title of a soon-to-be-released book — Your Soul's Plan: Discovering the Real Meaning of the Life You Planned Before You Were Born — seems to mean well. But it appears to be about finding meaning for your life.

Similarly, another title — Soul Wisdom: Practical Soul Treasures to Transform Your Life — infers that focusing on the soul will transform your life.

The entire Chicken Soup for the Soul series is about feeding your soul.

A modern classic, Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life, by Thomas Moore, describes the soul as "a quality or a dimension of experiencing life and ourselves. It has to do with depth, value, relatedness, heart, and personal substance." Moore says caring for the soul is "in many ways a return to early notions of therapy." It comes from the Latin word cura, which "means several things: attention, devotion, husbandry, adorning the body, healing, managing, being anxious for, and worshipping the gods."

Article continues below

While many such books employ Christian terminology, they often wander from traditional Christian understanding. It's no surprise that in these books, soul discussion can morph into humanism or spiritual self-interest.

Unfortunately, we hear much talk these days in evangelical circles about "caring for the soul" and "feeding one's soul" and such. I won't name names, because this isn't about finding a villain. It's about our — my! — instinctive drift to make spirituality about "me." We worry about the depth of our commitment to Christ, so we get busy with some new spiritual discipline, something we can do. We dissect our motives as if we're peeling an onion, with the same ultimate results. We strive to "make time for prayer" in our busy schedules, not recognizing that this very phrase suggests how utterly peripheral God has become to us — an add-on that we fit in, if we can manage it.

No question that we need to engage in the disciplines and explore our motives — that's one way we prepare ourselves to see and hear God, and to love him more deeply. But you don't have to have a Ph.D. in spiritual direction to realize that these activities easily devolve into a religious narcissism that constantly wonders, Am I spiritual yet?

News flash: Nobody cares if we are "spiritual." Not even God.

In The Brazos Introduction to Christian Spirituality, author Evan Howard sums up the nature of the discipline succinctly: "The question we ask in this book is, simply, 'What does a relationship with God look like for Christians?' "

That's the difference between healthy and neurotic spirituality: What is our first love? Who is our first love? While we are rightly concerned about losing our devotion to Christ because of some "worldly attraction," usually the temptation lies within. The question is not, "Am I spiritual yet?" and not even, "Do I love God?" (for this question in the end is about our love). The question is not a question but a focus: God.

There is a reason Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God. It's not to care for your soul. It's not to practice spirituality. It's not to transform the world or change culture or evangelize the world. All of these things have their place. But the greatest command is to love God.

The little-known 19th-century French nun Lucie Christine described a moment that crystallizes the point of all soul care and spirituality:

Article continues below
Suddenly, I saw before my inward eyes these words — God only … they were at the same time a Light, an Attraction, and a Power. A Light which showed me how I could belong completely to God alone in this world, and I saw that hitherto I had not well understood this; an Attraction by which my heart was subdued and delighted; a Power which inspired me with a generous resolution and somehow placed in my hands the means of carrying it out.

A light, an attraction, and a power unparalleled — God only. So if you are as tempted as I constantly am to take the measure of your soul, you may want to consider abandoning soul care for 40 days, and give your whole attention to the only One worth our obsessive devotion.

Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today. This column is cross-posted on his blog, where he interacts with comments.



Related Elsewhere:

Previous SoulWork columns are available on our site.

See also Christianity Today's special section on Lent.

Galli's latest book, A Great and Terrible Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Attributes of God, will be released March 1.

SoulWork
In "SoulWork," Mark Galli brings news, Christian theology, and spiritual direction together to explore what it means to be formed spiritually in the image of Jesus Christ.
Mark Galli
Mark Galli is former editor in chief of Christianity Today and author, most recently, of Karl Barth: An Introductory Biography for Evangelicals.
Previous SoulWork Columns: