02 Mar 2025: Practice Soul-Care (Exodus 18:17–18)
Practice Soul-Care (Exodus 18:17–18)
D. Scott Barfoot, PhD
Director, Doctor of Ministry Studies
Dallas Theological Seminary
(Reprinted from Resilience Rising. Finding Your Way Through Life’s Toughest Moments (2024), Klisia: Plano, Texas. Used with permission.)
Moses’ father-in-law said to him, “What you are doing is not
good! You will surely wear out, both you and these people
who are with you, for this is too heavy a burden for you; you
are not able to do it by yourself.” — Exodus 18:17–18
Prioritize rhythms for intentional soul-care that foster spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being.
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A couple of winters ago we had a devastating freeze. It was the kind of a cold spell that paralyzed our city for a few days. Dallas, Texas, generally has mild winters compared to the Great White North where I grew up. Yet this one freeze snapped pipes, toppled trees, and downed power lines, leaving many without electricity. Thankfully our pipes were fine, and we kept safely warm after losing power for only a couple of days. But after that storm, our front yard would never be the same. It turned many shades of brown, becoming like a lifeless dusty desert. Our front lawn, once lush and green, had completely died. It wasn’t just dead––it was dead, dead. The heat of summer came and toward the end of the season, we removed the old grass roots down to the clayish soil. Then we ordered a couple of pallets of St. Augustine grass from a local grass company. The whole family joined in the efforts to prepare the soil, lay the grass down like a royal carpet, and then take turns watering it by hand at regular intervals for several weeks. We also decided to plant a beautiful red oak tree. It took some time, research, and effort but the outcome was amazing.
As of this past weekend, we are now through winter and in a season of spring. We spent the weekend once again tending to the new lawn. Trimming, adding some decorative foundation plants, watering the grass and tree. Though we were tired, when we stepped back to admire our handiwork, the results were beautiful. This is a picture of tending and flourishing. It is a portrait of care and cultivation, perhaps it even strikes a chord within the soul for Eden.
I’ve been burdened for the number of folks we see struggling with significant physical, mental, and spiritual health setbacks. On the surface, they might seem to be making a huge kingdom impact, but they are like Moses trying to do everything on their own and too many are losing ground.
I can’t help but hear Moses’ father-in-law Jethro’s words as he cautions his son-in-law from overwork and under-cultivation, “What you are doing is not good! You will surely wear out, both you and these people who are with you, for this is too heavy a burden for you; you are not able to do it by yourself” (Exodus 18:17–18).
This is one of the most important chapters in finding our way through hardship. We must prioritize rest in our regular rhythms, rest for intentional soul-care that fosters spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being.
It seems that as stress increases in its duration and its intensity, it can quickly siphon the very margin necessary to prioritize the rest we need. It can become a vicious cycle in a downward spiral.
It’s like the time I witnessed a single engine Cessna flying over our six generation farm at an unusually low altitude on a clear day, only to hear the engines sputter and suddenly stall and to watch the plane spiral out of control, crashing in an adjacent field. At that time, there were no cell phones, no internet. In my mind, there was nothing I could do but just watch helplessly with worry for the safety and well-being of the pilot and passengers.
Part of the problem begins in our spiritual life. But is it more complex than saying a formulaic prayer, or having a checklist you mark off day-by-day for each devotional you read. It’s more nuanced than having an accountability group or prayer partner, though all these are important. The emotional landscape we are immersed in as well as our physical wiring uniquely intersect with our spiritual vitality. So when we think about resilience, we must give considerable thought to embodied soul-care––soul-care that considers the three areas of our whole being, of the spiritual, emotional, and physical. These three areas are like a stack of three overlapping paper towels. While one area may be in more contact with the mess, all of them get dirty. If you are wounded in one, it will bleed over into the others.
While my natural inclination is to argue that it begins and ends with the spiritual life, I’m not sure it is that simple. In these middle years, I’ve come to a place of conviction that it must begin and end with all three elements in rhythmic unity with habits and disciplines. And most importantly, apart from God’s grace, whether common or special, I’m not sure how one can find resilience when hardship pulls at us like unrelenting gravity on a stalling plane.
These next few pages attempt to articulate a matrix or a grid by which you will be able to process your stressors in a way that fuels the disciplines for holistic soul-care and well-being.
The first step in this process is to ask ourselves an important question. On a scale of 1 to 10, how intense are my stress levels. The second is to use the same scale to rate the duration or length of time I have been under this intense stress. If we score a 10 on the intensity of the stress but a 1 on its duration, we might think of this as a short, manageable crisis. If we score a 1 on intensity but a 10 on duration, we could consider this a kind of a stressful but minor disruption. However, if we experience a crisis and we score a 10 on intensity and a 10 on duration—in other words a long-term, high-intensity stressor—then this could eventually lead to burnout. This is what was happening to Moses in Exodus 18.
Think of yourself as a bridge. Let’s say the bridge was designed to hold a maximum of 100 tons for a duration of 10 hours. And let’s imagine there is an accident on both sides of the bridge, stranding trucks and cars for hours and hours. Based on the design of the bridge, as long as the total load of the combined stranded vehicles is under 100 tons, it’s okay to withstand the stress load. But if the total weight is over 100 tons, the bridge is going to start to collapse. Also, let’s say the total vehicle weight on the bridge is 100 tons, but there is water on each side and it takes rescue crews 12 hours to arrive on the scene. At the tenth hour, the bridge is going to show signs of weakening, leading to eventual collapse.
This is a picture of our life. We need to determine our maximum load capacity for both intensity and duration. The only way we can learn what that is is through a growing sense of self-awareness in the areas of our relationship with the Lord, our emotional capacity, and our physical strengths and limitations.
But here is the challenge. What if life happens in such a way that it is beyond your maximum stress load capacity? And what if that season of stress last for days, or months, or even years?
Richard O’Conner’s intriguing book Undoing Perpetual Stress brilliantly articulates how we are all too often caged in a state of unhealthy, ongoing stress. O’Conner uses the metaphor of a deer penned in with a leashed predatory canine that, while unable to do any harm, pushes the deer into a heightened state of anxiety simply through its hostile presence. He goes on to explain that if the deer is unable able to free itself from this vicious cycle, it will have a full range of health issues as a result.
This prompts us to an important question we need to ask ourselves: “Am I in a heightened, prolonged state of perpetual stress?”
Whether your first inclination is to respond with a resounding “Yes,” or “No,” anyone, whether you yourself, a co-worker, a family member or friend, anyone who is in a space of perceived, unending state of heightened anxiety, will eventually shut down their brain’s critical thinking center and ramp up what Seth Godin’s Linchpin calls the “lizard brain.” When the lizard brain kicks into gear, critical thinking is inhibited and stress responses of fight, flight, or paralysis take control.
During an army cadet training exercise, we were taking the Map and Compass course and were taught methods of self-regulation while experiencing the crisis of being lost. There is an acronym that has stuck with me all these years—S.T.O.P., which stands for, Stop, Think, Observe, Plan.
To strengthen this acronym and our wayfinding skills, we were blindfolded, placed in a deuce, a 2 and ½ ton green-tarped military truck, and transported to an unknown location in the middle of nowhere. We had to find our way back to the main camp using only a map, a compass, and our triangulation skills. The instructors had trained us to normalize the stressful experience of disorientation so that we could think critically and problem solve without inadvertently entering a state of heightened panic, since we didn’t know where in the world we were.
A few times now, I’ve taught my teen and young adult kiddos the S.T.O.P. acronym, applying it not only to being lost but to any crisis. I’ve also added an extra P for pray. It will be impossible to find your way without prayer, demonstrating complete dependence on the Lord, along with thoughtful, sober minded, spirit-led planning.
In recent weeks, we have suffered an unexpected family crisis with my father-in-law having a debilitating stroke. It is an honor and blessing to serve our extended family as caregivers. However, this setback deepens the level of stress caregiving can bring for the whole family. Over the last several weeks the intensity has increased to a capacity that Debbie and I and our kiddos cannot handle on own. We are working with their senior center to build a team of caregivers to bring a mix of assisted living and skilled nursing to them in their independent living apartment.
This is no small task. As the late Haddon Robinson says, “Aging isn’t for sissies.” But we are learning about our capacity to care for them in these sunset years as well as our limitations. We are also learning about the challenges of building a team that has the character, compassion, and competency to bless Dad and Mom in their time of need.
We are learning to apply the S.T.O.P.(P). acronym, even though for a couple of weeks the crisis required what felt like 24-hour wrap-around-care—especially by my wife, Debbie.
During this time, and after years of learning my own bandwidth through trial and error, I’ve had to pull back from the men’s discipleship group I was leading and ask another person to preach in my place for a Sunday service. I have also declined two other preaching invitations. Additionally, some of my work hours had to be adjusted. In my younger years, I would have just pushed through and tried to do everything, but after mistakes, I’m more aware of my capacity and have learned to off-load some responsibility so that I can prayerful more wisely manage the crisis at hand.
I’ve grown to be so thankful for God’s goodness and kindness to Dad and Mom. I recognize that ultimately, they are his children. Knowing this helps to ease the weight and anxiety over their well-being that I might otherwise try to carry on my own, only to hear Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, saying, “What you are doing is not good. You are going to wear yourself out!”
Why is it that in our culture we promote burning out in an overreaction to rusting out?
Here is the point. Growth in self-awareness is paramount. Not only must we grow in our understanding of the stressors we face in their duration and intensity, but we must also grow in our capacity to manage perceived stress and emotionally self-regulate so as not to inadvertently shut down our critical thinking only to unleash the lizard brain.
Mindset Shift on Trials
• Think about your current stress load. On a scale of 1 to 10, indicate both the intensity and the duration of your stress. Brainstorm ways you can share the weight you carry.
• Take 20 minutes and journal about your current emotional landscape, describing what specific areas need tending and cultivation.