Soul Keeping: Caring For the Most Important Part of You

by John Ortberg

“The most important thing in your life,” Dallas said, “is not what you do; it’s who you become. That’s what you will take into eternity. You are an unceasing spiritual being with an eternal destiny in God’s great universe.”

God has yet to bless anyone except where they actually are.

You’re a soul made by God, made for God, and made to need God, which means you were not made to be self-sufficient.”

If your soul is healthy, no external circumstance can destroy your life. If your soul is unhealthy, no external circumstance can redeem your life.

“No.” The will is what makes you a person and not a thing.

If you try to improve your soul by willpower, you will exhaust yourself and everyone around you.”

gaining the outside world doesn’t help you if your inside world collapses.

The more we focus on our selves, the more we neglect our souls.

Self is a stand-alone, do-it-yourself unit, while the soul reminds us we were not made for ourselves. The soul always exists before God.

“What matters is not the accomplishments you achieve; what matters is the person you become.”

We circulate résumés that chronicle what we have accomplished, not who we have become.

Underneath the hardness is often fear. The fear of being rejected. The fear of looking foolish. The fear of being hurt. The fear of broken pride. But souls can be saved when the soil gets soft.

The world conspires against our souls, keeping our lives superficial.