“Our Western minds are trained to go down the path of explaining. We think if we can understand it, then we can control it.”
If you don’t see the clear path, the end game, or the five-year plan, take heart. Be excessively gentle with yourself. Get still. Stop talking.
Pause the constant questioning of everyone else’s opinion. Now hold that thing, whatever it is, in your mind. Pay attention to your body and your soul—Does it rise or does it fall?
If there’s one thing I know for sure in the kingdom of God it’s this: the thing we often think is The Thing is often not the thing but is, in fact, only a thing.
In the midst of this highly stimulating exterior world, I made a discovery about my interior world: the input is automatic. So where is the output? How am I regularly getting rid of the soul clutter I no longer need?
Becoming a soul minimalist does not mean that you should hold on to nothing but rather that nothing should have a hold on you.
Stillness is to my soul as decluttering is to my home. Silence and stillness are how I sift through the day’s input.
Author and pastor A. J. Swoboda points out that in the last ten years, we’ve gone from having a TV in our living rooms to having a TV in our pockets.
I won’t go too far down the road of all the ways our phones have rewired our brains, and I won’t make arguments for the pros and cons of technology, but here’s what I will say: if you are carrying an unmade decision, you have to find a way to push back the distraction of your phone and allow some nothing space to fill the in-between moments.