Get Your Life Back: Everyday Practices for a World Gone Mad

by John Eldredge

Before I could do anything else, I needed to get out of the quagmire. I needed distance, breathing room. I needed his grace before I could even begin to reinterpret all that I’d been misinterpreting.

Our souls accumulate stuff, too, pulling it in like a magnet. And so Augustine said we must empty ourselves of all that fills us so that we may be filled with what we are empty of.1 Over time I’ve found no better practice to help clear out my cluttered soul than the practice of benevolent detachment. The ability to let it go, walk away—not so much physically but emotionally, soulfully.

Social media overloads our empathy.

Say what you will about John Eldredge, he's on to something with how our humanity is getting overwhelmed by everything we're able to take in from all over the world.

It’s not release; it’s fortressing.

The author touched upon an ache within us. He actually isn’t cynical; he makes the important case that you simply cannot care about everything all the time. Which I think tells us that millions of people are feeling massively overburdened and looking for some way to lighten their heavy emotional load.

Worry is only one of a hundred things that burden our souls. Genuine concern is just as dangerous, maybe more so because it’s grounded in something noble—your concerns for your aging parents, a sick friend, a people group, a cause crying out for justice.

We are far more entangled with the world than we know. And the thing is, people and causes have a way of entangling themselves with you too.

Thanks to social media, everyone’s life is open and accessible through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram—all of it. We’ve created an assumption that you can enter and observe, or engage, with anyone, anywhere, anytime. There are no boundaries. We’ve created an assumption that we’re entitled to enter anyone else’s private space at any time. It’s very harmful.

Back in the day if you wanted to have a conversation with someone, if you wanted to enter their world, you literally had to enter their world. You got in your car and drove to their farm and sat on their porch and had a conversation.

The fact that our world is so saturated with beauty, breathtaking in so many ways great and small—this ought to let you know God feels it’s something you need for your survival.

Let’s be honest: we prefer distraction. The more distracted we are, the less present we are to our souls’ various hurts, needs, disappointments, boredom, and fears. It’s a short-term relief with long-term consequences.

Really, it’s the new Tower of Babel—the immediate access to every form of “knowledge” and “groundbreaking” information right there on our phones, every waking moment. It confuses the soul into a state of artificial meaning and purpose, all the while preventing genuine soul care and life with God. Who has time to read a book? Plant a garden?

Modern worship bands not only need to be extraordinarily talented musicians, young, and beautiful, but their live events employ multimedia to keep your attention as well. Now church services compete with concert-level staging, lighting, special effects, and films. The terrible, unspoken assumption creeping in is this: if you’re going to find God, if you’re going to have more of God, it’s going to come through some amazing experience, something totally wild and over the top. Or we think that once we have God, the proof will be an over-the-top life. Not true. So unhelpful, and immensely unkind. This expectation actually makes those deeper experiences of God seem inaccessible for most of us.

Love, friendship, and marriage are nurtured in the context of simple things like coffee together, hanging out, getting a burrito, holding hands, taking a walk, doing the dishes, reading to one another, or just reading different things while you’re together in the same room. It’s the little things that build a beautiful life.

What does extending kindness toward yourself look like right now? How do you talk to yourself? What is your “way” with yourself? Is it harsh? Unforgiving? What about the expectations you currently have for getting things done? Is efficiency the emperor of your life?

Kindness means not expecting perfection in these practices, not requiring yourself to feel anything, being gracious about your heart’s slow journey toward God.

Human beings are like downed trees, scattered here and there by the hurricanes of this world. We are uprooted. This world does violence on the soul in so many ways,

I really like this visual. We, like trees, need strong roots that are watered and fed appropriately. The hurricanes of this world have become more than what are roots can bear. When our roots are constantly strained and stretched, our mental, physical, and spiritual health are impacted.