In this episode Gina Has a conversation with Bill & Kristi Gaultiere, doctors of psychology, spiritual directors and the founders of Soul Shepherding about their new book Journey of the Soul: A Practical Guide to Spiritual and Emotional Health. In their book, Bill & Kristi give language to the different stages of our emotional and spiritual growth, how they integrate and the roadblocks and invitations in each.
Check out resources for churches and small groups journeyofthesoul.org
Learn more about Bill & Kristi and their ministry soulshepherding.org
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Listen below to follow along starting at 27:26
Defeating Shame
Gina:
You hit on something when you were talking about shame that I want to highlight. I was just reading, 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, pray and seek my face and turn from their sin, I will hear from heaven, I will forgive their sin, and I will heal their land.”
But for some reason I was struck that “If My people who are called by My name…” that even when we’re far away, we’re still called by His name. That never changes. I think that shame lies to us and gives us a false narrative, that the Lord is saying, “You are no longer called by My name. I don’t want to have anything to do with you.” It’s that presumption that, “I have failed, therefore I’m done.”
Kristi:
People feel like they can’t tell anybody at church. They feel like they have to just pretend that they are close to God. It’s this, “I have to pretend I don’t feel this.” and they don’t understand what’s going on in the invitation that God has for them. This is an important part of their journey with Him.
Bill:
So we’re normalizing that all those desolations could be at any of the stages. Then especially the big desolation of the wall we’re giving words for that. We are giving people language for their faith and struggles that are hopefully shame-free grace that lets them be where they are, and see that God is at work in that. Each stage is good.
“Confidence in Christ” is the “C stage”. Help and discipleship is the “age stage”. Then “responsibilities in ministry” is the “R stage”, then “The wall” is commonly in the middle, but could be anywhere. Then it’s the “inner journey”, then “Spirit led ministry and transforming unions”.
So these are the six stages, and each one has its own sort of flavor and different personality or different culture that we’re in. Understanding that, and understanding where my sister or my brother is, and being able to have empathy for each other and respect for each other, and then to begin to realize that, “Okay, there’s a different way that God works with us in each of these stages.”
The biggest difference is between that first half of the journey and the second half; before the big wall, and then after the big wall. There’s big differences there. A lot of the conflicts that happen in churches and in families and between friends because people are on opposite sides of that wall, and they don’t understand each other. They don’t know how to talk to each other, because they don’t have language for it.
Creating Unity
Kristi:
That’s really one of the things that I’m most excited about with this book, as I was reading through Ephesians and some of Paul’s epistles, over and over I was seeing God’s heart for unity in the church. I felt like the Lord was saying, “I can use Journey of the Soul to help bring unity among My Bride.
As they come to understand these stages and that everyone is in different stages, they will learn that I’m at work in all of them. It will bring unity and an increased empathy and understanding with our brothers and sisters in Christ.”
Gina:
So Good. I think you hit the nail on the head, it’s an invitation. Every stage is an invitation. There’s going to be a lot of people that are going to read this book, but still feel like they don’t have a safe place, they don’t have a place to go. What would you say to them?
Kristi:
That’s a really good question. One of the things I would say is, you need to really pray and ask the Lord to guide you to somebody that you can maybe invite you to go through the book with, and to do the leaders guide together, or to do group with to get this understanding and this language and this articulation.
Maybe you will find that becomes a safe place, and some safe relationships and other people will open up like we’ve seen happen with groups. Another thing would be to reach out for a spiritual director or a counselor who can be a safe place for you, and who can be an ambassador of the Lord to you, and can help you have a safe place to be gut level honest. With the Lord and with another person who can pray for you, and can minister God’s presence to you.
Bill:
Sometimes people will say to me, “I don’t have a friend like that.” or “I don’t have a spouse like you have Bill, and I don’t know where I find that emotionally vulnerable and safe friend.”
What we can miss if we’re feeling isolated in that way or feeling stuck. A huge part of the solution is to be that kind of a friend to someone else. Become that kind of a friend.
So to do that, we need to pray like Christie said, and we need a context. Friendship happens in a context. So that’s where reading a book can be a great context. There might be a friendship, the sole friendship that could develop there. Then by being an empathetic listening ear and heart for that person, you can see what you’ve got and how far that can go.
Kristi:
God doesn’t want us to journey alone. We need people. We share in the book a story of being on a hike ourselves, and just being so discouraged. We thought we should have been there by now. We’re tired, it’s getting dark, we don’t have enough food. Somebody who knows the trail, who’s been ahead of us is there to answer questions to provide what we need, the resources we need.
That’s what we want this book to be. That’s what your ministry is. To accept that God doesn’t want us to be alone on this journey. He’s meant for us to journey together and we need somebody who’s ahead of the journey, who can give us a vision for what’s ahead and encourage us, and somebody who’s been where we are, and who can help us understand the good that God’s doing in that part.
That we can’t yet see what’s going to come from what we’re experiencing now. And even to your listeners, I would say share this podcast with a friend and say, “Hey, would you listen to this? And can we talk about it?” Because maybe somebody else has that same longing to just have somebody to talk to about it, but they don’t know that. When you don’t know until you kind of build that community together.
Soul Care Practices
Gina:
So the book, beyond articulating the stages, you have very practical ways for people to not just recognize the stage that they’re in, and the challenges, the roadblocks, and the grace. But you have given some tools, and I think again, we’re in a season right now where this is really important. Everything that we’ve presumed to place our spiritual health and everything has been broken down.
“I go to church on Sunday, maybe every other week, I have my little Bible study I go to with my friends.” All of that’s been disrupted. And so suddenly we’re kind of being faced with, “Okay, where am I at with Jesus? What do I do when I can’t gather? And how do I grow?”
So why don’t you share some of those things that we can do just in our relationship with Jesus? How to cultivate that, how to invest in that relationship. Proximity doesn’t equal presence. So why don’t you share some of the ways you guys have articulated some of those things in the book.
Bill:
We call them “Soul care practices.” There are different ways of meditating on Scripture, praying or interacting not only with the Lord, but with another person perhaps. So the disciplines that facilitate the inner journey are different than the ones that help us when we are becoming a Christian in the “C stage” or we’re first beginning to learn to read the Bible in the “age stage”, or we’ve discovered our gifts and we’re learning to serve and help others in our stage.
The inner journey is a lot more about learning to be quiet, and feeling that restlessness, or the anxious emotion that comes up, or I feel like I’m not being productive, or a bad memory or a conflict I’ve been in comes up. Instead of just getting busy and making that go away or going up into my head or helping somebody, I feel that emotion in God’s presence.
Maybe I read a Psalm that helps me to find words for what I’m feeling and pray about that. Or maybe I journal or maybe I call up that friend and say, “Can you listen to me?” These are spiritual disciplines in the same way that sitting down and reading 1 Peter is a discipline, but sometimes we get stuck in that mode while I need to be at my desk and have my quiet time and go through my prayer list.
Those are things that we tend to do, especially like in the age stage and other earlier stages. But in the inner journey, it’s a lot more about reflection and cultivating that intimacy with God and others and self.
Kristi:
That’s because our soul is kind of like a garden. In the inner journey, the Lord is digging deep down into the soil of our soul and uprooting some weeds that are deeply rooted there, and pulling out some rocks to make room for something new. He is making room for some seed that he wants to plant deeper, that is rooted in Him, and new work He wants to do.
It can feel like desolation to uncover. People will judge people and say, “Why is it important to look at your emotions?” and well, it’s because you’re bringing up this honesty of your soul. You’re opening your soul, and you’re inviting God’s touch and His love to go deeper, or you’re giving Him deeper access into you. There are sole training practices in the book that help you with this. At each stage there’s assessments in the books that help you.
There’s questions, nothing intimidating, just questions that help you identify what stage you’re in now. What’s your stage? We all have one stage we’re in right now, and then we still are touching into the other stages, but what’s your main stage right now? It also can help you understand people that you’re in relationship with. Well, what stage are they in? We have call out tools like the roadblocks, the temptations, and these kind of things because it can help us even if you’re somebody in ministry.
We want this to be a book that you pick up and discover what stage this person is in. What’s the roadblock on my daughter’s stage? What temptation is my daughter undergoing right now at, because she’s in this stage and I’ve been in that stage, but it’s been a while and I don’t remember. We can quickly reference it and refresh it. That will then form my prayers for her. So it can be a tool in that way as well.
Gina:
I love this book. I’m excited about what it means for the church. This isn’t about becoming a best selling author. It’s not about being the latest and greatest, coolest Christian thing. It’s really about giving people language and tools to identify things that they couldn’t before and to bring unity in the church, to bring spiritual and emotional wholeness to believers and leaders. It is time for such a time as this.
We are in a critical time in history where it’s time for the church to be the church. It’s time for us to take off the armor that doesn’t fit and lay down the weapons that we’ve picked up, and start to look at Him and surrender and trust that He’s here and He’s with us. That His love is relentlessly pursuing me. The person that annoys me, the people I don’t agree with, His pursuit is unhindered.
So thank you for your ministry. Thank you for your obedience to Jesus. It has been a hard journey and you’ve had to surrender things. There’s such a theme of how to have great hope and great expectation, but surrender what that looks like, surrender the plan, surrender the outcome. You guys have done that. The fruit of that is here. So we get to watch God do his thing now.
Kristi:
We love journeying with you. We’re so honored that you journey with us. We love your ministry, we love your Sacred Space podcast. Thanks for honoring us by letting us be with you and be your friends.
Bill:
Thanks so much for having us on The Sacred Space, and to all of you listening, it’s great to connect with you.
Closing Prayer
Gina:
Before we go, I want to take a moment and just pray for you. Wherever you may find yourself, maybe you can relate to feeling distant or stuck. Maybe you’ve hit a wall in your walk with the Lord, in your relationship with Jesus you’re not sure how to get around it. Maybe you’ve just been confused and felt like you’re looking around and everyone else is able to have this abundant life or all of this joy, and you just can’t seem to be in that same place.
Maybe you’re not in that place of desolation. Maybe you’re in a place of joy and you get really impatient and frustrated with your friends or people around you, or people that you serve with at church that they’re not where you think they should be. So Father, in Jesus’ name, wherever we may find ourselves right now, Holy Spirit, come. Lord, come to your sons, to your daughters with Your tangible presence, Your kindness, and Your grace. Surround each one of us right now in Jesus’ name.
Lord, for those who feel far away, I thank you that the reality is that you are near. That you are above, below, front, behind and on either side. They’re called by your name, covered in your grace, enveloped by your kindness. There’s permission to be where they are. Learn to just take authority over the lies of the enemy, the accusation, the shame.
Would you guard hearts and minds in you? Would you bring them to safe places to re-engage with the lover of their souls? And Lord, for some of us who just are impatient, easily offended, or frustrated with people around us, maybe we’ve even left church, Lord, give us capacity for grace.
Would your kindness lead us to repentance so that we can love, have empathy, and be in healthy relationship with you and with other people? Lord, this life isn’t about religion. It’s not about looking a certain way or behaving a certain way. It’s about being an intimate connection with the lover of our souls and loving those around us too. Lord, help us. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Check out the rest of this conversation:
How God Prepares a Minister & Journey of the Soul
Check out the Dwell Meditations
