“What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? What could you ever trade your soul for?”
Mark 8:34 MSG
Welcome to Week Two of The 40 Day Soul Fast!
If you’re just joining us for the first time, you can read about Week One or catch up with anything you may have missed by clicking here.
And be sure to take advantage of the many Soul Fast resources found here…and friends, if I’m coming to a town near you, please come see me! I would love to meet you!
Today we will be talking about the purpose of soul fasting.
Everything you experience begins on a soulular level.
When you feel weighed down, uneasy or apathetic, or just plain stuck, you’re in need of a soul fast!
If you feel like you’re drowning in a quagmire of mental clutter, stress, hurt, loneliness, or fear—fuzzy headed, indecisive, not able to think straight—you need to stop and clean your inner house!
“Make a clean sweep of your lives.”
Luke 3:16-17 msg
Breaking free, getting clear, and finding that peace and confidence that makes life joyful is the purpose of The 40 Day Soul Fast!
You are not alone when you feel waves of despair crashing against your mind—or that for every one step forward you end up taking two steps back.
Every human being is susceptible.
The first step to healing and liberating your soul is simply making the decision to do so.
If you are here reading this, I congratulate you on taking the time to invest in the life of your soul. You are already on your way to creating a stronger, fitter, better you.
When your soul is fit and strong, everything else about you will become better and stronger!
It amazes me how little we are willing to invest in the most important asset we have—the one asset that governs everything else we experience in this life!
The minutia that ties up our souls is one of the most misunderstood things keeping us from running with purpose and certainty.
Experiences, events, habits, relationships, desires, motives, and even spirits, can ensnare our souls, holding us back from moving confidently forward in the direction of our dreams.
In his award-winning book, Renovation of the Heart, Dallas Willard wrote,
“The hidden dimension of each human life is not visible to others, nor is it fully graspable even by our selves. We usually know very little about the things that move in our own soul, the deepest level of our life, or what is driving it.”
We must ask ourselves, “Why do I do the things that I do?”—“Why do I keep attracting the people I really do not want in my life, and repelling the people I do?”—“How can I break free from negative cycles?”
We must be honest with ourselves and have the courage to look around, take heed, and ask the difficult questions
What within your own life is causing your circumstances or determining the experiences you are having with other people?
Now more than ever, at this time in history, we must “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and…run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1).
The weights that tie us down keep us vulnerable to sin.
These weights cause us to inappropriately respond to life’s challenges—to adopt sets of behaviors that keep us stagnated and going around in circles.
These negative patterns prevent us from fulfilling our dreams and cause us to abort our purpose, until eventually we fade from life with dormant seeds of massive potential.
When we are unable to break free from the junk cluttering our soul life, we keep those around us bound up as well.
We become part of the problem rather than the solution.
We are among the blind leading the blind. Jesus asked His disciples, “Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into the ditch?” (Luke 6:39.)
We become the hurting that hurt, and the disappointed that disappoint.
In my years of interacting and observing people, it has become glaringly apparent that most folks are generally oblivious to how their decisions and thought patterns affect those with whom they interact on a daily basis—let alone how everyday words and decisions affect their own destiny.
This is heart wrenching to me.
I have spent my career as a civil servant, educator, and minister observing the debilitating burdens people carry who have been hurt or negatively affected by the words or actions of others, as well as their own.
Negative actions and reactions are simply the outcry of hurting souls.
It is a cry for healing and restoration—a desperate plea to be freed from the weights and bondages that have tied so many to continual defeat, failure, and despair.
It is a self-perpetuating process the enemy exploits to incarcerate the souls of humanity in prisons of offense, resentment, and unforgiveness.
Most of the junk cluttering our souls has to do with the experiences we have had, or are having, with other people. The result of the choices we make within the context of our relationships.
It all began when humankind first chose to walk away from a healthy relationship with God and to relate instead to the god of this world paying fatal attention to his deceptive propositions.
History bears witness to generation after generation of increasingly unhealthy relational ties.
We have become an increasingly self-centered people, pursuing the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life—experiencing deceptive measures of success without fully maximizing our potential or fulfilling our purpose.
Many never realize there is a direct correlation between where they are now and every decision they have made in the past.
Destiny moves at the speed of decision.
In other words, the life you are living—the state of your relationships, the joy and peace you are experiencing, or the sorrow and pain all find their root in the decisions you’ve made up until now.
Your life is simply a representation of the sum total of your choices—choices that either enslave or save your soul.
Think about that for a moment.
Ultimately, you are only one decision away from changing everything.
One decision can change the trajectory of your life.
You are always just one decision away from living the life of your dreams!
From here on out, make certain everything you say or do is aligned with the Word of God.
James wrote, “be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (James 1:22).
Why? Because it is by choosing to do and not just hear the Word that you are “able to save your souls” (James 1:22).
It is up to you to take charge of your soul—and ultimately your destiny.
I will be showing you how to detox your soul and renew your mind so you can break free from the decisions that are keeping you from going around in circles.
I will take you on a journey through the realm of your soul and the territory of your thoughts, and walk you through the mechanics of harnessing the power of your words and the extraordinary force of your actions.
You may have been handed a bad deal from the day you were born, but that doesn’t have to be your final epitaph!
“You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:32
The truth will set the real you—the divinely-created you that has been held captive—free from the limitations of your unsaved, enslaved soul!
What is one thing you can do—one decision you can make—right now to begin putting yourself back in the driver’s seat?
Let me know on Facebook or Twitter! I’ll be looking for you there!