Our closets, our garages, our cupboards, our lives are--let's face it--cluttered. Stuff is everywhere: old yearbooks, projects we started years ago but never finished, commitments to activities that we now regret making but don't feel we can pull out of. Are you longing for space--for simplicity? Here is a book to bring you there. Soul Care® Resources are designed to be simple, but not simplistic, guides to maintaining or recovering the life and health of your soul, that essential personhood created by God as you. In four sections Mindy Caliguire helps you discover and embrace who you are, set healthy boundaries and embrace simplicity as a lifestyle that brings freedom. You use this book in small chunks of daily reading, covering the whole book in the course of four weeks. Also included are four guided group discussions for use with a small group or a spiritual friend. Are you ready to start your journey toward simplicity?
The frantic pace of contemporary life leaves our bodies exhausted, our minds stressed, and our spirits depleted. In a book that is at once profound and pragmatic, the acclaimed author of GROWING IN FAITH explains how to clear away the physical and mental debris that clutters our lives and concentrate on nourishing our capacities for giving and receiving love. Creating a simple life requires nothing more than motivation and a straightforward plan and Yount provides them both. Yount shows us that there is a better way that is simpler, relaxed and vastly more rewarding physically, emotionally and spiritually. Men and women who simplify their lives discover that their senses sharpen, that their health improves, and that they become more loving, compassionate, and more at peace with themselves. These inspiring stories will inspire readers to begin their own journeys. To help them get started, SPIRITUAL SIMPLICITY includes easy 'how-to' exercises that lead the way to living not just from the head but from the heart and the soul.
The sun rises, the day begins, and the world begins clamoring for your time. But the whisper of God calls you to be with Him?and it's the best part of your day. Beloved pastor Charles Stanley has been teaching the Word of God for forty years?lovingly, reverently explaining the wonders of Christ's Good News from the pulpit, in his internationally acclaimed radio program, and in more than thirty-five best-selling books. In I Lift Up My Soul, Dr. Stanley's inspirational gems?filled with personal wisdom and words of encouragement?will lead you to your heavenly Father day after day. Each day in I Lift Up My Soul, you will find a verse from Scripture, recommended reading, a guided prayer, and an inspirational and instructional message designed to lift your heart and soul from the earthly to the eternal. Your day will be transformed.
Courtney Carver shows us the power of simplicity to improve our health, build more meaningful relationships, and relieve stress in our professional and personal lives. We are often on a quest for more—we give in to pressure every day to work more, own more, and do more. For Carver, this constant striving had to come to a stop when she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Stress was like gasoline on the fire of symptoms, and it became clear that she needed to root out the physical and psychological clutter that were the source of her debt and discontent. In this book, she shows us how to pursue practical minimalism so we can create more with less—more space, more time, and even more love. Carver invites us to look at the big picture, discover what's most important to us, and reclaim lightness and ease by getting rid of all the excess things.
"I'm just so busy and tired." These words fall from your lips as easy and often as your next breath. You're weary of your packed schedule and frenetic pace and responsibilities at every turn. Even good things no longer feel life-giving. You long for a simpler life. You want to be able to face daily burdens and the chaos of this world and say with confidence, "It is well with my soul." But how? (in)courage is ready to come alongside you through Courageous Simplicity, a six-session Bible study on living in the simple abundance of Jesus. This study will help you release control of what frays your soul and will lead you to true refreshment. As you train in the spiritual practice of simplicity, you will discover the God who loves you lavishly and wants to show you how to live with a heart open and surrendered to his presence. You can live in the peace and freedom of having and being enough. Let your friends at (in)courage show you how.
Few people have ever seen or heard of The Spirit of Simplicity: it has been hidden for almost seventy years after quietly being published by the Abbey of Gethsemani in 1948. Anonymously translated and annotated by a young monk named Thomas Merton, the book’s author—who also is not mentioned by name in the original edition—is Jean-Baptiste Chautard, the famous French Cistercian whose only other book, The Soul of the Apostolate, has been a favorite of modern saints and popes, including Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Every generation struggles with the question of simplicity. In the history of our faith, there have been no more eloquent voices calling us back to simplicity than the monks of the Cistercian Order, from Bernard of Clairvaux to Chautard to Merton—all of whom contribute to this powerful book. Merton surrounds Chautard’s text with his own remarks on simplicity, translations of classic texts by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and commentary that allows readers to pursue the themes of simplicity in their own lives. "Only a very inadequate idea of exterior simplicity can be arrived at if we do not trace it back to its true source: interior simplicity. Without this, our resolution to practice exterior simplicity would be without light, without love …," Chautard wrote at the beginning of the book. He is writing to his fellow Cistercians, but he might as well be speaking to twenty-first century Christians. He goes on to lay out the best disciplines that a monk—or anyone—might practice to find the elusive simplicity, with quotations from St. Benedict, St. Bernard, and other pillars of monastic life and spirituality. A dozen photographs of Cistercian architecture illustrate how principles of simplicity are incorporated into Cistercian daily life. In Part 2, Merton opens up the teachings of St. Bernard, a great mystic and doctor of the Church, offering excerpts from St. Bernard’s writings on the original simplicity in the Garden of Eden, the difficulty of intellectual simplicity, the simplicity of the will (obedience), and other kindred topics. Merton also offers personal reflections from the perspective of one who had recently exchanged an active life in pursuit of worldly things for the solitude of a monk.
Judah Smith, New York Times bestselling author of Jesus Is ____, helps readers understand what steals their peace of mind and outlines the path to peace and fulfillment: understanding and implementing the healthy soul environment God originally designed. Modern everyday life is stressful and confusing, full of overly packed schedules and circumstances outside one’s control. This can be especially troubling for Christians who are wrestling with reality while trying to put their trust in God. But the truth is, anxiety does not have to be the constant from day to day. In fact, all the things people most desire in life--peace of mind, hope for tomorrow--are rooted in one simple thing: how they care for the health of their souls. In How's Your Soul?, Judah Smith explores the various facets and needs of the inner person, demonstrating that the path to cultivating healthy souls starts with discovering God’s original design. He helps readers find real peace and security by bringing their feelings into alignment with God’s truth, discover a healthy sense of identity from God and feel empowered to face the future with a new security and confidence, and learn the four elements necessary for a healthy soul environment. Sharing his own often humorous mistakes and foibles, Judah offers a helping hand as readers find their way through the emotional rollercoasters of life to discover the soul-healing essentials rooted in what he calls the soul’s only true home--God himself.
Christians know that God loves them, but can easily feel that he is perpetually disappointed and frustrated, maybe even close to giving up on them. As a result, they focus a lot—and rightly so—on what Jesus has done to appease God’s wrath for sin. But how does Jesus Christ actually feel about his people amid all their sins and failures? This book draws us to Matthew 11, where Jesus describes himself as “gentle and lowly in heart,” longing for his people to find rest in him. The gospel flows from God’s deepest heart for his people, a heart of tender love for the sinful and suffering. These chapters take readers into the depths of Christ’s very heart for sinners, diving deep into Bible passages that speak of who Christ is and encouraging readers with the affections of Christ for his people. His longing heart for sinners comforts and sustains readers in their up-and-down lives.
Simplicity: the sure path to God The saints assure us that simplicity is the virtue most likely to draw us closer to God and make us more like Him. Relying on the words of Jesus and the lives of the saints, Fr. Plus maps out a sure path to the simplicity which Jesus praised, a simplicity that bestows on all of us who seek it: happiness, courage, and inner peace, no matter how complicated our circumstances may be or how crowded our days.
