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Amazing Possibilities!

Writer's pictureMatthew Kelly

Spiritual Dehydration: The Toxic Things We Watch


We're talking about amazing possibilities, we're talking about the mega trends in our society today, sole denial and dehumanization, and we're talking about the need for a great movement of humanization in our world, in our civilization.


I want to talk to you in this session about spiritual dehydration, because it's one of the things that comes from dehumanization, it's one of the things that comes from soul denial. It's our souls. They get dehydrated.


When Jesus was on the cross, he said. I thirst. And the soldiers, they gave him a mixture of wine and and gold, which is a bitter, bitter combination, it would not have relieved his thirst in any way, shape or form. In fact, it would have added to his dehydration. And it was a cruelty upon a cruelty. I mean, people every day who are spiritually dehydrated, I mean, people every day who are saying.


Verbally, nonverbally, in lots of different ways, I thirst. And when we say to the world, I thirst, the world gives us exactly what the soldiers gave Jesus on the cross, the world gives us this bit a combination of wine and. It doesn't help with our spiritual dehydration and makes us more dehydrated than ever before. And it adds to our misery. And it's a real cruelty. The reason the world does that is because the world has nothing more to offer.


The world cannot hydrate your soul. Only God can hydrate your soul. And that's why it's so important that we turn to God from time to time, that we take this time each day in prayer, in reflection, to be with God, to sit with God and to allow God to fill us up, allow God to fill us with his living water so that our souls can be hydrated. Because when our souls get dehydrated, we do get miserable.


And when we get miserable and hydrated, we get impatient. We get impatient. We get angry, we get resentful. We get discontented, dissatisfied. All of these are the marks of our culture. All of these are the marks of our world because we've got a whole world out there suffering from spiritual dehydration. And so in this session, I want to talk to about two ways to hydrate your soul, you know, because God wants to to quench your thirst. God wants to quench thirst.


He wants to hydrate your soul. And so I want to talk to you about two specific ways that you can hydrate your soul. You know, whenever I come and visit your cities, I would come, I would think, OK, what's the practical takeaway? We talk about a lot of different things that hopefully get people's attention, that inspire people to tune people into God and what he is saying to them in their lives. But at the end of the night, when you go away, I always want you to take something away as a practical resolution, as something you say, OK, I can live out what I learned today by doing these two things.


And I'm going to give you two things tonight. The first one is a challenge. You to spend 30 minutes a day in prayer and reflection. I know for the last twenty seven years I've traveled around the world talking to people about ten minutes a day, spend ten minutes a day in prayer. But the reality is, I think the situation is worse today than it was twenty seven years ago. And I think our spiritual dehydration is worse today than it was twenty seven years ago. And I think we need more. We need time.


We need time to be still to be silent, to be in solitude with our God and allow him to fill us up. So I want you to think about really making a commitment to this daily habit, daily discipline, this daily practice of prayer and reflection, 30 minutes a day, put it on your calendar, commit to it, make a promise to yourself that you'll do it. Many of the things we put on our calendars are not important.


In fact, most of the most important things we do in our lives, we don't actually put on our calendars. I really want to challenge you, put this on your calendar, try and do it at the same time every day. What you discover is that it's revolutionary, it will actually revolutionize your life, maybe you've been a person of prayer for a long time, maybe you were a person of prayer and you slipped out of the habit. Get back to that habit, put it on your calendar 30 minutes a day, because here's the thing.


We talk a lot about change. Talk a lot about change. Talk about this change the world or that change the world or this change people's lives. That changes people's lives. But have you ever known someone who really changed their life, have ever known someone who said, you know what? No, I'm a step back, I'm really going to change my life? I think covid. Was a spiritual wake up call to many of us.


I think it did show the cracks in our lives. I think it did show us some things about our lives and ourselves that we probably didn't want to see. The question is, we've discovered this, but have we learned anything, you know, what is the difference between discovery and learning when we learn something? We put it into action. We put what we discover into action as souls, soldier, thirsty souls are dehydrated. It's time to allow God to quench that dehydration in our souls 30 minutes a day.


Put it on your calendar. Commit to it for the next 21 days. I promise you are transforming spirit, be transforming experience, and then hopefully after 21 days, you come to the place we realized, wow, how did I ever live without that? I never want to live without that ever again. What do you do during the 30 minutes? Maybe spend a little bit of time with the prayer process, talking to God about the things that are happening in your days.


Spend a little bit of time doing some spiritual reading and maybe do some journaling journal a little bit about, you know, what is God saying to you in your life today? Journal put the date. It's amazing. You know, I come back to my mass journal or to my other spiritual journals and I look at some of the things that God said to me a year ago or two years ago or 10 years ago. And it's great to see the way he helps us. Grow, change, evolve, develop.


The ways he helps us become better version of ourselves if we listen. And so really encourage you to make that commitment 30 minutes a day. Number one. Number two, practical takeaway from this evening. I want you to think about the content of your life. Yeah, I want you to think about the content of your life. I think the content of our lives is the main source of spiritual dehydration in our culture. What is the content of our lives?


Well, the content of our lives is the media. We watch the news, we watch the TV shows, we watch them the movies, we watch the books, we read these. This is the content of our lives. Conversations we have with people. Are they helpful? Are they toxic? Are they gossip? Are they helping us become the best version of ourselves, all of the content of our life either hydrates outsole or dehydrator, so.


When's the last time you watched the news and you thought, wow, that really hydrated my soul? When's the last time you had a conversation with a bunch of people and said, wow, that really hydrated my soul because a lot of the conversations in our lives are toxic and we have to be mindful of that. A lot of the things we watch are toxic. Many of the things we read don't hydrate our souls. They dehydrate our souls. They're toxic. And so we have to be mindful of the content of our lives.


I think you covered a lot of people, watched a lot of television, you know, during covered a lot of people, watch a lot of television. More people binged on television during covid than any other time in the history of the world. And so to examine the content of your life, I want to ask you this question. If you had to live. In the last television show you watched, if that was your life, you lived in that television show. What would your life be like?


Would you still be hydrated, would you be becoming a better version of yourself? Would you be walking with God? Would you be immersed in goodness? I think for most of us, the answer is no. I think the answer is no, and I think it's important we reflect on that, we've got excuses or we've got justifications, we say to ourselves things like, well, I'm just relaxing.


It's dangerous because while you're relaxing, your soul is being emptied, while you're relaxing, your soul is getting dehydrated. We've got to think about the content of our lives. So there's the two takeaways, the two practical takeaways. No. One daily time of prayer and reflection, I want to challenge you to 30 minutes, it'll change your life. I want to challenge you to that. If you can't do 30 minutes at a time, pick a time, commit to a time, don't just vaguely say, yeah, I'm going to do this.


No. Set a time, commit to a time, No one. Go to God in prayer and reflection each day and allow him to hydrate your soul no to. It's time to re-examine the content of your life. The media, you're consuming the television and movies you're consuming, the books you're consuming, it's time to re-examine this content and ask ourselves. Is it hydrating my soul, is it dehydrating my soul, is it toxic? Is it healthy?


Is it helping me become a better version of myself? Is it leading me closer to God? Is it helping me have better relationships? Is it helping me be a better father, a better mother, husband, wife, brother, sister, son, daughter? Or is it destroying our souls?


Literally eating away at our souls, and if that's the case, we re-examine our content, the content of our lives we discovered so eating away at our souls, it's time for new content, this great content out there, the soul feeding content out there, this content out there that can hydrate your soul, that's hunt down that content. Let's share that content with our family and friends. Let's talk with our family and friends about that content.


And so the second practical takeaway for tonight is. Change the content of your life if there's something about your life that you're not happy about, if there's something about your life you're dissatisfied with, change the content of your life. Many, many years ago, I used to say, if you tell me the books you'll read next year, I'll tell you how your life will change next year. That's still true. Books change our lives.


The reason they change our lives is because what we read today walks and talks with us tomorrow. What we read today walks and talks with us tomorrow. The content of our life. We spread it around good or bad. We spread the content of our life around and we become the content of our life. We become the content we're consuming in our life would become the news we're consuming. We become the TV shows we're consuming. We become the movies, the books, the conversations we have.


We become the content of our life. And so if you want to really change some aspect of your life or completely transform your life, transform the content you're consuming. Transform the content you're consuming, I promise you, it will change your life.


Matthew Kelly


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