Soul Keeping
By John Ortberg
Zondervan Publishing Company, 9780310275978, April 2014, 210pp.
The Short of It:
If you’ve ever felt disconnected spiritually, there’s a good chance your soul was at the heart of it.
The Rest of It:
My life group read this book for our study and it was an interesting read. These kinds of books always seem to fall into my lap at the right time.
For the past few months I’ve felt “broken”, for lack of a better term. Just run down and ragged. I do all the right things and yet still feel empty sometimes. It’s the day-to-day routine that gets me. Waking up at 4 a.m., going to bed at 11 p.m. Same. Same. Same. I’v had enough. This book attempts to address this type of thing. If your soul is not good, the rest of you won’t be either.
I thought my soul was okay. Pretty good, actually. But after reading the book I see that my soul is not the center of my focus. I am now attempting to correct that. Did I get everything I wanted out of this book that I expected to? No. It left me feeling a little unsatisfied and flat. What Ortberg says, I agree with 100%. The important stuff needs to come first and the other stuff falls behind it. But the voice seemed off to me. It was a little repetitive and didn’t sound all that sincere even though Ortberg struggled with the very same thing.
All in all, I’m not sure my life group got a lot out of it. I think it would have worked better as a short video series or a podcast.
Source: Borrowed
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Book Chatter 
I read your blog every week. This is my first comment. I appreciate that you don’t always give a glowing review of a book. It saves me from wasting my time. There are Sooo many good books out there.
Thank you for taking the time to comment. I agree. There are way too many books catching my eye these days so when a book doesn’t work for me I am pretty honest about it. School starts up around here in a mere two weeks and I still have so many books left to read on my summer list.
So, how religious is this book? I am all about helping my soul, which I admit needs some help since I feel the same way you do. However, I am not religious. I would have a difficult time reading this if it talks about any sort of praying or higher power spirituality.
Christianity is at its base but it’s not overly religious. Given what you stated in this reply though, I’d say skip it.
Too bad the book is lacking, but it sounds like you got the main ideas and can apply it to yourself. I hope it helps you figure out what’s been going on for you (or not going on, as the case may be). I can’t believe you only get 5 hours of sleep a night!
This seems like it would be interesting, but if it’s repetitive that might get on my nerves.