In HOPE

 

 

 

  In HOPE 9.6

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David Timms  

 

 

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Prayer for Today

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I enter that innermost room – my Soul Room – and invite You there. Teach me to abide with You and change me by Your Presence; constantly. I want this Room to set the agenda for every other room in my life. Dispel the darkness, remove the dirt and dust, flood it with Your Light. Amen.

 

Recommended Resource

Chuck Miller’s book Spiritual Formation of the Leader takes this theme of the Soul Room and develops it very helpfully. Miller has helped thousands of Christ-followers discover the joy of intimacy with the Lord. His book offers practical insights and deep wisdom – profoundly simple and readily applicable.

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For information about my current writing projects, see www.growingdeeper.com

 


The Soul Room

The Soul Room regularly suffers neglect in our lives. It’s where abiding happens; where we abide with the Father, spend time with Him, give Him our attention, wait on His leading.

 

We prefer to spend our time in the Leadership Room, Education Room, Dating Room, Ministry Room, Family Room, or Work Room. Those places demand much of us and expend all our energy. They offer various promises (promises of security, status, intimacy, and significance) but have limitations. And they fail to nourish the soul. That happens in the Soul Room.

 

These other rooms have legitimacy in our lives but always remain secondary to the Soul Room. In the Soul Room, as we hang out with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, we experience the affirmation and the housecleaning that prepares us for every other room in our lives.

 

In the Soul Room we discover our truest identity as sons and daughters of God.

 

But that Room also houses much of the grit and grime of our lives. It tends to accumulate it all. And in the Light, such things get revealed and addressed. No wonder we hurry past this doorway.

 

Shame, fear, embarrassment, and pain may sit on the shelves of the Soul Room. So we’d prefer, strangely enough, to stock such toxicity and poison the other rooms rather than do business with God to toss it.

 

In the Soul Room we practice solitude, where our hearts grow still and attentive to God.

 

We can enter the Soul Room in the quiet of a private sanctuary or even surrounded by a crowd. It’s a state of heart, a journey of the mind, a conscious step into the cleansing and refreshing, calming and renewing, affirming and transforming Presence of God. It’s not a Quiet Time but a place to which we travel – in an instant; a place at our Center where the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit abide with us.

 

As we learn to step back and forth between this Room and every other room in our life, we encounter Him with greater intensity and we live life with greater groundedness. Jesus said, “In My Father’s house are many rooms ....” It’s true in our lives, too. But one room sets the rest in correct order; the Soul Room. Dare we enter it?

 

In HOPE –

 

David

 

 

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You can find back issues of "In HOPE" (2005-2009) at http://www.hiu.edu/inhope/.

David Timms serves in the Graduate Ministry Department at Hope International University in Fullerton, California. "In HOPE", however, is not an official publication of the University and the views expressed are not necessarily those of the Administrators or Board. "In HOPE" has been a regular e-publication since January, 2001.