Caring For Your Own Soul - Understand Your Spiritual Pathway

{Links are provided at the end of your reading.}

A few soul-shaping tidbits to remember from Part One...

Tip #1 Every art form requires the utmost patience and practice. Practicing the unhurried life is no different. You can be busy and have an adventurous life without succumbing to a hurried lifestyle.

Tip #2 Hurry is not a symptom of busyness — Jesus was busy and unstoppable. But His busyness never amounted to hurry (an inner frenzy or angst). The problem with hurry is it's not the problem, rather, it's a symptom of a much bigger issue, a disconnection. Yet, connection is what you and I are designed for, and it's what we already have in Jesus. So what's the disconnect?

Tip #3 Our memory needs to be regularly refreshed. It's one step at a time, one decision at a time.

Tip #4 Unhurried activates faith. It gifts grace for yourself and others. Tip #5 Hurried activates fear. It both evokes and invokes impatience within yourself and with others.

Caring For Your Own Soul - Understand Your Spiritual Pathway When we proactively attend to our inner life in order to decelerate and do some interior work, it will look different for each of us. One of those factors is how you best connect with Abba's heart — your spiritual pathway. It is the way in which you most effortlessly connect with God. Without second guessing yourself, identify your three core pathways:

Activist

If you have an activist pathway, you experience God through activities that require a high level of energy and passion for action.

Contemplative

If you have a contemplative pathway, you experience God most when you have time to think deeply without distraction.

Creation

If you have a creation pathway, you experience God most when you are in or around nature.

Intellectual

If you have an intellectual pathway, you experience God most when you’re engaged intellectually and are discovering more about Him.

Relational

If you have a relational pathway, you experience God the most when you’re involved in significant relationships.

Serving

If you have a serving pathway, you experience God most when you’re actively serving others and alongside others.

Worship

If you have a worship pathway, you experience God most during moments of worship in the fine arts.

Yet, these are mere gateways. God desires that we have a variegated connection with Him (ourselves and others). He calls all of the beloved in Jesus to engage and savor the Spirit-led, abundant life (the Jesus-life). It’s not a matter of whether or not you pick your preference, but how you can be available and open to allow the Holy Spirit to guide you to connect with God best through any of them.

The Hurry Disconnection

Since we know that the problem with hurry is not the problem, but a symptom of a disconnection, let's begin to ask the Spirit of Truth to show us when and where the disconnect surfaces. Remember: connection is what you and I are designed for, and it's what we already have in Jesus.

So what evokes disconnection for you? (the beginning stages of something, deadlines, certain attitudes from yourself or another, competition, comparison, appointments, grief, someone's needs, projects, doubt, cynicism, lack of sleep, etc.)

Unhurried activates faith...

Trust Abba's goodness despite failures and frailties. Gift grace to yourself and others. Hurried activates fear... Shamed by vulnerability. Evokes impatience with yourself and others.

An Unhurried Appraisal

Just like the first two questions in Part One, think of the following questions as an inner being X-ray (sorta speak), not a pass or fail test. The aim is to ask questions that get to the heart of the matter to improve our spiritual vision. I like how Pico Iyer puts it, "To have more attentive, more appreciative eyes to sift through matters of life."

Part One Sabbath Questions...

Consider the seven spiritual pathways/gateways as you respond to the following questions:

1. What are the common sources of hurry pressures (either real or perceived) that you experience regularly?

2. What ongoing choices can and will you make that will provide permission, space and time to allow you to notice, acknowledge and guard your soul's vitality?

Ponder your responses for a moment. Do you recognize a theme? Anything surprising to you?

Notice the need(s) your responses have revealed.

Acknowledge where you are on your journey.

Part Two Sabbath Questions...

3. Consider your top three spiritual gateways. What are they?

4. How will you intentionally nurture yourself this weekend and this coming week, as you engage with your top three spiritual gateways?

You can download and print the Unhurried Living Spiritual Gateways SOULUTIONS Worksheet. Muse on this over the weekend… And remember, new rhythms tend to work best when we stick with a singular focus, so think in terms of recognizing and welcoming the Spirit of Truth into the steady unfolding and development of your unhurried inner life.