How God’s Goodness Can Restore You—Part One

The soul, Pastor Rick Warren explains, is not some vague spiritual concept—it is the part of you that thinks, chooses, and feels. And all three of those functions can get damaged. Your mind can be broken by trauma, bad input, or chemistry. Your emotions can become raw and depleted. And your will? "Our choosers are broken," Warren says bluntly. "We're all flawed in many ways. That's why there are addictions. That's why you do things that you don't want to do, and you don't do things that you want to do." The central claim of this message is that the good shepherd—Jesus, who calls himself that in the Gospels—wants to restore all three parts of the soul to health. But you cannot get restored until you understand what is causing the damage in the first place.

What Damages the Soul: Grudges and Guilt

Warren focuses on the two most common soul-damagers: unaddressed grudges and unconfessed guilt. Grudges are about what other people have done to you. Guilt is about what you have done to others. Both warp the way you think, feel, and choose.