Soul Settled!

May 13, 2021

Soul-Settled!

Around 5:00 a.m. most mornings, I embark on about a three mile walk.  The walk is my quiet time; a time for exercise and a time for praying out loud.  Yes, at 5:00 a.m. you can pray out loud because no one is outside!  It’s an intimate time in which I feel connected to nature, to myself, and to Jesus.

Two weeks ago, the first words out of my mouth were, “Jesus, deep inside I feel unsettled.”  It was odd because that is not where I begin my early morning prayers.  Usually, I start with praying for my daughter and her husband, my other daughter, and my wife. 

The prayer that Thursday morning kind of surprised me.  The prayer started with me and a sense of unsettledness in my soul.  Later in the morning, I had a sense that the Holy Spirit had been praying in me and for me for things about which I was not even aware.

In Romans 8:26 (NRSV) the Apostle Paul writes; “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” 

Although this is my favorite translation of the original text, some might find another translation (CEV) more to the point.  Paul writes; “In certain ways we are weak, but the Spirit is here to help us.  For example, when we don’t know what to pray for, the Spirit prays for us in ways that cannot be put into words.”

The Spirit was praying for me.  More specifically, the Spirit was praying about the unsettledness I felt in my soul.  For the life of me, I was not sure what the source of the unsettledness was.  But, it was clear that at a level much deeper than I knew, my soul was longing for calm, for peace, for a settledness.

Your soul may be longing for the same thing.  The longing of our soul to be settled is more common than we probably realize.  We all live a life that is too often too fast and too loud as well as too crazy and too chaotic.  Our lives are often intense and anxious with all the expectations as well as fretful and stressful with all the responsibilities.

Our soul cries out for something more.  Our soul longs for a little calm and a little quiet in the midst of all the busyness around us.  In Psalm 131:2 David writes; “But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; my soul is like the weaned child that is with me.”

David was King of Israel when he wrote these words.  He was powerful, popular, and had a lot of responsibility.  However, he chose not to look to those things for what his soul needed most.  When everything around him was crazy and chaotic, David intentionally chose to calm and quiet his soul.

David learned that a settled soul comes… 

not with control but with surrender to God.

not with ambition but with obedience to God’s calling.

not with knowing all the answers but with seeking the wisdom of God.

not with living up to the expectations of others but with living into who God created me to be.

not with the increased velocity of life but with a deepening relationship with Jesus.

The challenge is none of these shifts are sustainable until we set some limits and create some margins.  Until we give energy and prayer to making some time and keeping some boundaries, we will fail to calm and quiet our soul.  Our soul will remain unsettled and our life will know no peace.

The energy and prayer we need are encouraged and inspired by our worship of God.  Worship keeps our focus on the Lord and who the Lord is as well as on who the Lord has created me to be.  Worship is where I take delight in the Lord and begin to experience a calm and quiet in my soul.

I encourage you to find a place where you can worship the Lord God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength.  As you worship, take delight in the Lord and watch as the Lord brings calm and quiet and settledness to your soul.

Take delight in the Lord!

Doug