How To Find Daily Spiritual Balance with Jake Smith

“Any theology or any way of living that doesn’t lead back to loving God and loving others with all of my heart, mind, soul, and strength is actually bad theology.” – Jake Smith, founder of Plumbline
We want to be deliberate about finding balance in 2021 and that starts with our spiritual lives. And that’s what we talk about this week on our podcast - how to find daily spiritual balance.
Finding balance is difficult for all of us but single parents find it particularly challenging. Many of us don’t experience consistent balance. Rather, we tend to live going between highs and lows as we try to juggle everything on our plates while being a solo parent.
Our guest this week is Jake Smith, a former pastor who created a non-profit called Plumbline which is centered on personal development and spiritual, emotional, and relational health. Plumbline offers weekly groups that lead individuals through a process that helps them integrate their heart, mind, soul, and strength as they relate to God, themselves, and others.
If we are to find godly balance in our lives, integrating these areas is essential.
Jesus talked about this in Mark 12 when he answered the question spiritual leaders posed, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” Jesus' response was to quote the Shamah. “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” In Matthew 22, he addresses the same questions and says, “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
“If we want to summarize what Jesus is all about, or if we want to summarize the Scriptures, in a nutshell, Jesus did that for us. He said this is essentially the core of everything. Any theology or any way of living that doesn’t lead back to that, loving God and others with all of my heart, mind, soul, and strength is actually bad theology. So, when we talk about balance, we can pull from what Jesus said is most important by looking at our spiritual anatomy – our heart, our mind, our soul, and our strength. These are unique parts of us, and we need all four parts to developed and interconnected. This is how we can show up to life and to our relationships – with our kids, with our colleagues, at work – with the fullness of our design.” – Jake Smith
So, when we talk about balance, we need to consider these four parts of our “spiritual anatomy” that Jesus talks about in the Shamah because this is how he asks us to relate to God and to others.
What does it look like to show up to my life with my heart, my soul, my mind, and my strength, in an interconnected way, to the people and things who matter most?
Elizabeth, a single mom through divorce, has been part of Plumbline groups for the past year. As an Enneagram 7, she tends to avoid her feelings and run from them. She tends to go toward the area of strength first and foremost, but Plumbline has taught her that she doesn’t need to be afraid of the other areas. It’s given her the ability to trust God more and understand that her feelings help her connect to Him more. Elizabeth uses the Shamah Way app to check in daily on how she’s feeling, be honest about it, and pay attention to all the four parts of her spiritual anatomy. Just identifying what she’s experiencing in her heart, mind, soul, and strength, helps her walk through her day with God, integrating all of them, rather than just one or two.
The tendency is to live dominantly from one or two of these parts. Some of us live from our minds as “thinkers”, others live as “doers” acting in their strength most. If we only live from our feelings, we may become overwhelmed emotionally and get stuck, not acting in our strength when we need to. The key to daily spiritual balance is paying attention to each of these areas and living from a place of integration. Instead,  we often overuse an area we are comfortable while neglecting other parts of ourselves that may be more difficult for us to access or acknowledge.
For example, we may excel at strategizing and putting a plan in place but be less able to recognize our feelings. When this happens, we may show up for a heart conversation with our mind instead and miss an important opportunity to connect with someone we care about at a deeper level. When we overuse or underuse any of these areas, we find ourselves imbalanced, hindered in our ability to connect in a healthy way with God, with ourselves, and with others.
Learning to live from a place of integration with all four parts is a daily spiritual practice. It’s called spiritual practice because we need to do “daily reps” in each area. We must practice within the arena of the four significant parts of you. As single parents, the deck is stacked against us in using each area because we are often so busy getting through our day and getting things done, we use our minds and strength only and neglect our heart and soul. A key area of practice for single parents is being intentional about paying attention to those parts of you too.
If you need to find ways to practice daily spiritual balance, this podcast is a great place to start!

To learn more about Jake and his ministry:
www.shamahway.com
www.jakesmithjr.com
@jakesmithjr
@shamahway


Single parents, as you seek balance in this new year, you are not alone. As you walk the journey of solo parenting, we want to offer encouragement and hope any way we can. Join our Solo Parent Society community by participating in one of our online groups meeting Monday through Saturday every week. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram (@soloparentsociety). Subscribe to our weekly podcast via AccessMore or wherever you get your podcasts and download our Solo Parent app FREE in the app store. We love to connect single parents to resources that offer hope and help. If you want to donate so we can reach more single-parent families, go to www.soloparentsociety.com. Questions? Email us at info@spsociety.com.



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