Welcome to Soul Scientist!
I surely hope that you’ll be encouraged in the soil of your soul from the Scripture, stories, songs, and sentiments you find here. May our Good God grace you with joy for strength and hope for faith as you trust Him in the happy and in the hard. Please come on in and stay a while.
your friend,
Beth
If you’ll click on the link below, it will take you to a post with a short video on how God holds fast to us at all times and in all circumstances. I surely hope that this might encourage you in whatever hard you might be living in right now.
https://soulscientistblog.com/2023/09/11/hold-fast/
written by and copyrighted to Beth Madison, Ph.D., 2023.
Now available from Northeastern Baptist Press! You can purchase it directly from them or on Amazon, Christian Book Distributors, and other online book sellers.
Be assured that my daddy will sign your book for free (he’s the one in this picture telling me stories about what he used to see at the creek when he was a little boy here at our favorite place on our family farm).
6/7/23
More on rest
Exodus 23:10-12 ESV “For six years you shall sow your land and gather in its yield,but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave the beasts of the field may eat. You shall do likewise with your vineyard, and with your olive orchard.Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed.”
God commanded the Israelites to give the soil a Sabbath every seven years. Sabbath means a choosing “to sit still” and rest in the Presence of God. Yet as seen in those verses and in science, the soil was experiencing active rest. It was meeting needs in growth and grace all seven years. Six years of nourishing the farmers and their families; one year of nourishing the poor. The soil never shut down or wasn’t being used by God for helping someone. And the knowledge of that truth gives this soil scientist the courage to trust God that He will use me in rest and the strength of His grace to meet another’s need.
The seventh-year Sabbath for the soil was essential for proper nutrient cycling, micro- and macro- organism populations, organic matter levels, and pest control. The seventh-day Sabbath for the Israelite’s souls was essential for proper perspective in knowing God, micro- and macro-obedience, relationships with God and others, and sin control. So if such rest was necessary in the days before high-production and profit agriculture and social media and shopping, how much more essential is such rest for me for today?
No exceptions or exemptions were given with this command. No people were overlooked or ignored with that command. The needs of the poor were provided for by God through the obedience of others to Him. The same can be said of us who are poor in spirit or mourn from living under the weight of suffering today (see Matthew 5:3-4). God will meet our needs as He’s promised (see Philippians 4:19). Many times, He uses the obedience of others to meet our needs while we are doing the work of active rest.
For example, has someone offered to bring you a meal, pick up groceries, come to visit, help with chores, or ___________? But you’ve refused because you didn’t want to be a burden, felt self-conscious, unworthy, or __________. If so, then you could’ve denied this person the opportunity for obedience. His or her life might be the very soil supposed to supply your needs in this Sabbath set in suffering. Conversely, your receiving of their service might be the soil in which joy springs forth for his or her growth in grace and faith. And that joy might be a source of strength for them in a suffering that no one knows about except our Good God (see Nehemiah 9:10). For isn’t that how God works? For there in the giving, He is glorified while all are graced.
Please share a story with us in the comments sections about how someone has helped you through a challenging time. And while you’re writing the story, please consider how you can help someone in your life today in his or her challenging time.
This was another excerpt from the Nevertheless: Finding hope in suffering project. This project will be coming from Northeastern Baptist Press in early 2025. Please stay tuned here to the blog for the release date and purchasing options. Thanks!
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https://soulscientistblog.com/blog/
written by and copyrighted to Beth Madison, Ph.D., 2023
03/11/23
Letters to Sarah
Today’s post is part 1 of a series which will be compiled into a companion book to work alongside “Nevertheless: Finding Hope in Suffering”. This series is made up of actual letters to a dear friend named Sarah who is seeking to thrive in her life despite chronic illness. “Letters to Sarah” is intended to be a daily read devotional book for those seeking to thrive in chronic illness. Stay tuned for more to come in this series!
Please like, comment, and share this post with those in your life searching for help and hope in their struggles with similar challenges. We need to stand with and for each other so we can flourish together, no matter what the day brings.
Hebrews 5:8 MSG Though He was God’s Son, He learned trusting obedience by what He suffered, just as we do.
Dearest Sarah,
I’ve been praying for you a lot lately, both night and day. And I think those night-time prayers aren’t just for helping you, they’re for helping me too. They’re for helping me to learn more about the trusting obedience from that verse from Hebrews. Because that kind of obedience demands far more from me than just words; it requires the faith that our Good God can and will provide what is needed, when it’s needed.
For a trusting obedience faith doesn’t rely on sleeping at night to give the strength to get up in the morning and face another day crammed full of expectations from others and myself. A trusting obedience faith doesn’t require shiny or happy or even do-able for this moment or the next but one that stays, listens, and waits for hope. A trusting obedience faith doesn’t demand me knowing what’s coming (or not) and abides in the truth that what I can’t see is far more important than what I can.
2 Corinthians 4:18 AMPC helps this kind of trusting obedience faith to grow in my days and nights – Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting.
Brief, fleeting, deathless, everlasting – such contrasts of truth war for my attention in the pain and all too often, prompt a retreat of my faith when I get them out of order in my heart and mind. The dust of today is brief, fleeting. The destiny of heaven is deathless, everlasting. That is truth. That is real. And that truth doesn’t change, no matter if today feels like forever and heaven nothing more than a fable.
As you know by now, I think a lot about growing things and about how things grow. And I think that these kind of thoughts help my weak faith to grow just a little bit more…especially in those nights which seem to last longer and grow darker than I ever thought they could. Because the nights are when our Good God seems to press in closer as my Rock, Shield, and Strong Tower against the pain, loss, and grief trying to choke the tender green shoots of faith, hope, and truth.
He knows those dreams I don’t understand or put into words. He holds close what I cannot – rest, calendars, and what used to be (but now isn’t). He soothes that which is beyond my strength and abilities.
Only He is greater than all of this. And only He can redeem all of this with purpose for good for both you and me for now and eternity.
Praying for you with much love, dearest Sarah.
Your friend,
Beth
Some good news to share – Northeastern Baptist Press will be publishing another book of mine called “Well-Grounded: Cultivating Intimacy with God”. “Well-Grounded” is a Bible study book focusing on how principles from plant and soil science can point us to Jesus through use of the spiritual disciplines alongside questions from Genesis chapters 1-3.
As always, thank you friends, for your encouragement, support, and prayers with the books and the blog! You cannot know how much your help means to me, all the way down the smallest particle of the soil of my soul.
Be sure and sign up to follow the blog here for more posts and more good news!
https://soulscientistblog.com/blog/
Be sure and order your copy (and one for a friend!) of Good Ground Volumes 1 and 2 – available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online book distributors including Northeastern Baptist Press.
Click on link below to order directly from Northeastern Baptist Press or to sign up to receive notice of new book releases from them.
https://www.nebpvermont.com/books
written by and copyrighted to Beth Madison, Ph.D., 2023.
1/23/23
Do you see me?
Genesis 16:13 ERV The Lord talked to Hagar. She began to use a new name for God. She said to him, “You are ‘God Who Sees Me.’” She said this because she thought, “I see that even in this place God sees me and cares for me!”
Feeling invisible and ignored is more common than we might want to think for people in suffering. Let that sink in a moment. Do you feel invisible or ignored today?
Now, consider using this thought for prayer for yourself and others you know living in hard places. There is much beauty to be found in rightly considering this thought, Scripture, and prayer. For the beauty of the truth is that you, your friend(s), and all of us here in our wildernesses of hard life circumstances have never been invisible to or ignored by Almighty God.
He is with us in the even there of Psalm 139:10. Just as He was with Hagar in Genesis 16, He is with us. He is with us, no matter how long, hard, painful, or lonely that wilderness may seem for now and the not-yet…
That truth bears repeating – He is with me and will never leave me (see Hebrews 13:5).
That truth bears repenting – God, please forgive me for doubting You are always with me.
That truth bears receiving – God, please open my eyes and heart to see how You are with me today.
That truth bears recording – God, thank You for how You meet with me in my wilderness by providing _______________ as a help to me. (Please take some time to think of more than one answer for that blank. Be specific in your gratitude to our Good God. He is deliberate and specific in His provision for your need. And when we seek Him, He is neither invisible nor able to ignore with His Presence in the details and directions of our days (see Proverbs 3:5-6).)
Now is always a good time for gratitude. Reading Scripture is a great way to prompt gratitude – on that note, please take some time to carefully read Genesis chapter 16 to see more of how God tenderly provided for Hagar.
He provided for Hagar in the wilderness then. He will provide for you in your wilderness now. His power, His majesty, His love haven’t changed. And no matter what we are living in or where we are today, we can rely on Him and His love for us.
1 John 4:16 NIV And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
written by and copyrighted to Beth Madison, Ph.D., 2023.
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