“A person’s soul takes on qualities according to its activity.” – Ignatius Brianchaninov
This was the daily quote that greeted me this morning as I opened up my Full Focus Planner to the day’s planning, scheduling, and notes pages (side note: I use the notes pages for both notes and as a journal throughout the day). Anyway, this quote immediately jumped out at me because it confirms a truth I have been learning lately; you become what you focus on. If you focus on engaging in reflection, spiritual growth, and walking in purpose, you become a reflective person who is growing in their faith and walks in their purpose. If you focus on engaging in negative, low-level, self-limiting thinking, then you become a negative person who operates in low-level thinking and does not achieve their potential because of self-limiting beliefs. And you don’t want that to happen, which is why it is so important to nourish your soul with meaningful activity, as your soul will take on what you give it.
So, how can you produce and feed your soul good fruit?
One of the translations for the Greek word meaning “fruit” is “that which originates from something, an effect, result.” The Bible states you can tell whether a person has good or bad motives “by their fruits.” See Matthew 7:15-20. An apple tree produces apples, a fig tree produces figs. A good tree produces good fruit and a bad tree produces bad fruit. See id. The fruit of the Holy Spirit, which grows in the lives of people walking with Christ, is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Galatians 5:22-23.
One way to cultivate these fruits in your life is to actively seek them in your daily life. I am not Catholic, but I see great value in the Daily Examen exercise created by Saint Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Order of Jesuits (and the same person to whom the opening quote is attributed). The Daily Examen exercise is described by IgnatianSpirituality.com, a service of Loyola Press, as “a technique of prayerful reflection on the events of the day in order to detect God’s presence and discern his direction for us.” It consists of five steps explained in detail here:
- Become aware of God’s presence in your everyday life.
- Review the day with gratitude.
- Pay attention to your emotions.
- Choose one feature of the day and pray from it.
- Look toward tomorrow.
If you are interested in learning more about the Daily Examen, visit this website for more information and resources: https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-prayer/the-examen.
Do you have a daily journaling/prayer practice? If so and you don’t mind sharing, let me know in the comments and let’s learn from each other! 🙂
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