Why soul care?

Soul care, or caring for our inner life, is something that as Christians we need to give attention to—particularly in our very busy, noisy, high paced world. That tiredness and maybe the sense of overwhelm or just a lack of joy remind us that our souls need some attention.

A good metaphor for why soul care is important is the camel. They plod through the desert. They carry heavy loads and they can go without water for weeks at a time.

But camels have a hidden weakness. One day without warning, camel may just collapse and never get up again, if they haven’t been well cared for.

I wonder if we aren’t quite similar to camels. Often we keep pushing and striving in our work and ministries. But one day, like the camel, we may just get to a point where we have nothing to draw on. The heaviness of the world and the burdens we carry can start to drain us of our hope. We start to lose our creative spark. We just feel quite empty. And that is why it is important that we nurture our souls and keep our hope and creativity alive.

I want to share this Dallas Willard quote, which I really love. It says our soul is like an inner stream of water, which gives strength, direction and harmony to every other element of our life. When that stream is as it should be, we are constantly refreshed and exuberant in all we do because our soul itself is rooted in the vastness of God and his kingdom. And all else within us is enlivened and directed by that stream. We must take care to do whatever we can to keep our soul in God’s hand, recognizing all the while that we can only do this with his help.

I really like that imagery. It speaks of refreshment and a fruitful life.

It also ties in with Jesus’s words in John 7:38 where he says, “Whoever believes in me, rivers of living water will flow from within.” If we are rooted in Jesus, His Holy Spirit just enlivens our soul with His joy, His peace, His love and also the message that He has for the world.

Why writers in particular need soul care

The church and the world really do need emotionally and spiritually healthy leaders.

As writers, we are influencers through what we put out. I’ve started to really come to realize. just how important writers and publishers are to encourage and equip the church. We as writers and publishers can really have a big influence. And wherever you are in the world, you can have an influence in almost the direction that the church takes.

If I don’t take care of my soul (inner life), how will I have everything of value to give my readers?

Our calling

Firstly, let’s talk about calling. We often hear this word used for ministers and pastors, but I think we can also use the word for all of us. I believe that each one of us has a calling. For many of us here, that is a calling to write or to communicate in order to fulfill the Great Commission of making disciples of Jesus.

I just want to focus on this lovely line in the Bible in Isaiah 43, where God says, “I’ve called you by name.” I believe that God says that actually to each one of us.

This quote by John Powell summarizes this calling. He says, “God sends each one of us into the world with a special song to sing, with a special message to deliver, with special acts of love to bestow. No one else can sing my song. No one else can deliver my message. No one else can bestow my acts of love. Only I can.”

Just one of my hopes for this webinar is that we kind of have a renewed sense of this and also embrace our calling and the uniqueness of that calling.

Excuses we make

Now, this is not as easy as it sounds. We often have inner resistance to embracing our calling.

I just want to use the discussion that Moses had when God calls him to consider what that resistance might look like in our lives. These are basically Moses’ excuses when God says, “Go, I am sending you.”

Maybe ask yourself as we’re going through these, if any of these excuses resonate with you.

Firstly, Moses says, “Who am I that I should go?” Maybe you’re saying, “Who am I that I should write? Who am I to do this?”

Then Moses says, “What shall I tell them?” Maybe you’re saying, “What shall I write?”

He also says, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me?” Here he’s worried about the outcome, the external of it. This one also resonates with me. You can think this book could fail. We wonder, “What if no one publishes it? What if no one buys the book or I get bad reviews?”

Moses also says, “I have never been eloquent. I am slow of speech.” Here he looks at himself. Maybe you’re looking at your deficits and thinking, “I’m not eloquent. This is not my first language. I don’t have the gifts. I don’t have the education to do this.”

Finally, Moses just gets very desperate and tells the Lord, “Please send someone else.” We can do that, too, if we start to look around and compare ourselves and think that somebody else might be able to do this better.

How God responded to Moses’ excuses—and ours

God has called you by name. Let’s take a look at what God says back to Moses. I believe He says it to us as well.

He says, “I will be with you.”

God makes us just one promise as we embark on being obedient to his calling. It’s not a promise that we will be successful by the world standard. It’s this promise of His presence.

He also says, “I will help you speak and I will teach you what to say.”

This is what’s so beautiful about this ministry that’s equipping and teaching and training and journeying alongside people to help them fulfill their calling. I’m always struck by the fact that Jesus was a teacher, and the Holy Spirit is a teacher as well.

And then God says, “What is that in your hand?”

Now, Moses just had the simple shepherd’s staff in his hand, but it would become the tool of liberation.

God asks us this question, too. “What is in your hand?” All of us have something in our hands. We have a love for words, a love for story and maybe a way with words. We have our own story of how we met Christ, of redemption, of pain transformed into victory, whatever your story is. We have our history of living in a specific culture or country. And we have the things that God puts on our hearts. Maybe it’s a heart for young people or refugees or a burning message.

And all these things we can offer to God, and He can use them in ways that might surprise us. Like Moses must have been surprised with the way God used his simple staff to pass the Red Sea, to become a snake in the confrontation with Pharaoh’s magicians, to give the Israelites victory in battles when he held it up.

Even if we have quite a clear sense of our calling, the fact remains that if we do not nurture our own relationship with God and keep our hope in Him alive, we will have nothing of value to share in our writing ministry. The verse that comes to mind here for me is Jesus saying, “I am the vine. You are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing.”

Wow. Nothing.

Four Obstacles to a Deep Life with Christ

So how do we remain in Christ so that we are fruitful writers, publishers and ministry leaders?

We probably know the prescribed answer: We need time in God’s word. We need to pray. We need fellowship with other Christians. We need to worship and obey God. But just because we know these answers, it doesn’t mean that it’s an easy thing to do. There are aspects of the modern age that are at odds with a life that is deeply rooted in Christ.

I want to look at four of these that I’ve identified that also might be a hindrance to you

Hurry

Hurry is something that really impacts our relationship with God. It closes us off from hearing God and even closes us off from the people around us. Dallas Willard said, “Hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life in our day.” Jesus lived an unhurried life. Is Jesus inviting you to slow down, to build enough margin into your life? Consider making small changes. Look for moments to pray in your day.

Busyness

Busyness is related to just how much we pack into our lives. Often, we don’t allow ourselves to rest. This can be rooted in ideas like, “I am what I do. Things depend on me.” Such thinking denies our limitations and reveals our lack of faith. Ruth Haley Barton says, “God is the only one who is infinite. I am finite. I am not God.” Is Jesus inviting you to build in daily, weekly and even annual rhythms of rest?

Distraction

We are so distracted. We are connected 24-7. We have this constant barrage of news, mindlessly scroll, pay attention to constant pings or just binge watch online. Ronald Rollheiser says, “In today’s climate, it is difficult to have any interior depth whatsoever. We are distracting ourselves into spiritual oblivion.” Is Jesus inviting you to answer that? Maybe switch off your phone for a few hours each day.

The mindset of self

This is the kind of the thinking we may have that “I must be better. I must sell more books. It’s all about me.” It’s a very competitive mindset where we see others, even other Christian writers, as competitors. God does not call us to write so that we can get accolades and praise. He calls us so that we can bring godly influence into the culture around us. Is Jesus inviting you to surrender, to die to self each day?

Write a prayer in response to Jesus’s invitation to you.

Four Keys to Nurturing Creativity

Madeline Engel says God is constantly creating in us, through us, with us, and to co-create with God is our human calling. Here are four keys to nurturing co-creation with God.

Honor and express your uniqueness

We are each absolutely unique. The combination of attributes that constitutes us will never be duplicated.  Our way of expressing it will also be unique. The truth of this makes the exploration and development of our uniqueness an item of the highest priority. We need to explore and develop our creativity. You can do this by trying different things. If you always write non-fiction, have a little go at fiction. Play around.

Become aware of your inner critic, and then talk back to them

We are often our own worst enemies when it comes to expressing our creativity, because we have harsh ways of thinking and speaking to ourselves. This ties right back in with some of the excuses that we give God for not stepping into our calling. We have to talk back to ourselves and say, “That’s not true.” And tell ourselves what is true from God’s Word.

Get in touch with your childlike side, your playful side.

Children are inherently creative because they have a sense of adventure and fun. Most of us lose this as adults. Yo-Yo Ma said. “We need to constantly remind ourselves to play with the abandon of the child. He is playing for pleasure. This is still the only good reason to play.” We can write with abandon. We can write for pleasure. We can write because it makes us happy.

Be present and pay attention

The same things that harm our relationship with God—the busyness, the hurry, the distraction—also harm our creativity. God made us with remarkable senses to take in and enjoy the world, and all these things feed our souls and our creativity. We need to slow down and take it in. John O’Donohue says, “In our mediocrity and distraction, we forget that we are privileged to live in a wondrous universe.”

An anonymous friar said, “If I had my life to live over again, I’d try to make more mistakes next time. I would relax, I would limber up, I would be sillier… I would take more trips. I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers and watch more sunsets. I would do more walking and looking. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would ride on more merry-go-rounds. I’d pick more daisies.”

Q&A

What are the best books on creativity that you would recommend?

Walking on Water by Madeleine L’Engle and The Artist’s Way by Julian Cameron really helped me uncover a lot of the debris of what kept me from writing. This was significant for me in my writing journey.

How would you decide on historical fiction?

If you have the tug, I think you have to go there. I resisted writing Harem Scrolls for a long time because I was quite intimidated. If you just see it as a journey, exploring that world and those characters, then it’s less scary.

Why do you think our creativity can tend to diminish or shrink as we leave childhood and enter into the world of adulthood?

Life gets more serious, we get more responsibilities. And so we just allow ourselves less time to play. It’s the cycle. There are so many more demands on us.

Why do we lose our creativity as we grow?

We grow up with our need for love and acceptance. When we’re authentic, we might do things that adults don’t approve of. We choose love and relationship so we do as we’re told and we gradually lose our authenticity and creativity.

Do you have any tips on how to build in peace in the midst of a busy schedule?

Nature is a place where I can put in a rhythm of prayer, even at midday, just a little pause. Lectio 365 app helps with those little moments. We just need those reminders to connect and then draw on His peace.

How can writing can be a rhythmic activity rather than something that happens in spurts?

Protect your own rhythms. Don’t let frustration take that desire away. Your rhythms will be very unique to you. I set myself the goal of writing two or three times a week. Slow and steady also produces something of value. Don’t dismiss the small amounts of time. Use the smaller amounts of time in your day to still honor that calling to write.

How do you protect your soul from being pushed and pulled by others’ comments?

We have an audience of one and that is God. Ultimately our eyes have to be on Him and just being faithful to Him in our writing. The negative comments make us doubt ourselves and doubt the calling. Come back to Jesus and sitting at His feet and give Him the writing, give Him all that turmoil.

How long did it take you to finish your latest book, and what kind of sacrifices did it require?

Harem Scrolls felt very long. It probably took me about three years to write. And then more time to find a publisher, and a whole season of editing. For me, it’s never felt so much like sacrifice because it’s always where my joy was. (My children might disagree. I’d forget to pick them up at school.) When I’m not writing, I feel restless.

About Joan

Joan Campbell is a contributing devotional writer for Scripture Union South Africa’s Closer to God and the author of seven books, including an award-winning fantasy series. Joan is an MAI-Africa’s Communications Coordinator and lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Related resources and links

Why Write and What to Write – A webinar with Afrika Mhlophe

Creativity Is Not Magic – A webinar with Randy Capp

Wanted: Writers with Beautiful Feet – A webinar with Ardy Roberto