Using our garden analogy again, lets explore what we need to do once we've completed cutting away the brush in preparation for planting garden. That next step is, preparing the soil. We need to turn over the ground, add fertilizer and composting material; we also need to get rid of any remaining loose roots and rocks that were exposed while we were cutting away the brush.

Now cutting away the brush is ridding the garden of the big unwanted things, but this alone will not guarantee we will have a productive garden. So we need to take another step by further preparing the soil for planting. It's in this process that we begin fine tuning the garden so that our plants will have the best possible environment in which to grow and thrive, thus producing good fruit.

Well, preparing the soil of a garden is no different then preparing the soil of our soul. We too need to turnover our life, get rid of the loose stuff, fine tune our thinking and living so we create the best possible environment in which to grow and thrive as disciples of Jesus Christ.

We may give our heart or mind to the Lord intellectually, but often times we fail to walk and grow n our relationship with the Lord. Preparing the soul requires giving our whole life over God, so that we can be formed into his image. In church language we call this process of preparing the soul, spiritual formation. Spiritual formation is the process by which we engage in activities that encourage our lives to be better formed spiritually.