“Although you earnestly desire to live at peace with God, are you losing the war within your soul? How do you care for those parts of yourself that are angry, acting out, and afraid? . . . The next step is inviting Jesus to be near a struggling part of your soul.”- Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller
In Chapter 6 (“Step Three: Invite”) of Boundaries for Your Soul, Alison Cook and Kimberly Miller ask if parts of you reside far from God, in need of His loving presence. If so, they continue, you’re not alone. For example, Jesus spent time with all types of people, including:
- sanctimonious ones trying to keep everyone in line
- straying ones breaking the rules
- suffering ones living on the fringes
Most noteworthy, these three groups from the Gospels sound quite similar to the manager, firefighters, and exiles of your internal family. Furthermore, Alison and Kim exhort, you might be surprised how Jesus responds when you invite Him to draw near your soul’s sanctimonious, straying, and suffering parts.
Therefore, the authors cover each of these soul parts. Today they discuss the first.
1. The Sanctimonious. Throughout the Gospels, Alison and Kim note, Jesus interacted frequently with religious leaders who excelled at putting up a good front. As a result, this masked their insecurities and weaknesses. Also, this part of our soul often believes it’s speaking on behalf of God. However, reality shows that this part often keeps you from establishing a meaningful relationship with Him. And, when those managers stay too far away, that may prevent you from doing the good, kind things that a child of God does.
Finally, as you invite Jesus to draw close to your managers, they’ll start to understand that stepping back doesn’t reflect lower standards, Rather, for you to operate effectively, you need to:
- get rest
- do what you can
- maintain humble perspective
Today’s question: What Scriptures help you keep from losing the war within your soul? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “Redirect the straying, well-meaning parts of your soul”
