In Psalm 23 David writes of the Lord our Shepherd, "He restores my soul." I am not sure I fully appreciate how important it is that my soul be regularly restored, but I want to grow in the awareness of my soul's need to be restored. We have a hard time ignoring the signals of a physically sick body, but I suspect for many of us it is all too easy to limp along with a thin and malnourished soul.

This morning while reading the gospel of Mark, I was struck once again with the priority Jesus assigned to the care of His soul. Mark 1:35 describes the daily habit of Jesus: "And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed." He rose early and went to a desolate place where he would not be interrupted or distracted. It was a precious time to commune with His Father - and to have His soul strengthened and directed for the demands of that day's ministry.

It seems that our souls are restored in quiet places - beside still waters, in green pastures, in prayer, in "desolate places". We can't spend our whole lives there - we need to be active and giving and caring and ministering and just doing the stuff of life. But to replenish the soul we should give attention to having daily quiet time to commune with God. That might make a good pursuit (not to use the word resolution) for the New Year.

One application I did not share on Sunday, but pass along as a valuable one for the soul is to read at least one good book on the cross of Christ in the coming year. Nothing strengthens our soul like meditating on Calvary and our Savior's loving sacrifice. I am currently reading "Pierced for Our Transgressions" by Steve Jeffery, Michael Ovey, and Andrew Sach. It is an excellent read on the biblical grounds and crucial importance of Jesus' penal substitution.

Other books I recommend are In My Place Condemned He Stood by J.I. Packer and Mark Dever; The Cross of Christ by John Stott; and for a more applicational book about the cross Death by Love by Mark Driscoll looks excellent. I have not read it all, but what I have read has been very good and helpful.

He restores my soul. For the good of our souls, let's make time to commune with God in a quiet and undistracted manner a bigger part of our lives in 2009.