My Soul Waits for the Lord

Jesus fills the hungry soul with His life, peace and joy. What is our soul? It is one entity in our triune make-up: our body, soul and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23). The soul is our thoughts, feelings and choices.

One word for soul in the Bible is ”pxyxe" and means to breathe, or to blow. God breathed His breath of life into us and our soul was born. We get our words psyche, psychology, etc. from this root word. The soul is our personality, our identity as an individual.

God justifies us in our spirit through salvation; He will glorify our body with immortality when we see Jesus face-to-face; but He sanctifies our soul in a life-long process to make us as holy as He is holy.

If we earnestly seek the Lord with our whole heart and soul, we shall find Him (Deuteronomy 4:29; Matthew 22:37). We thirst for Him in this desert of life; we long for Him with our entire being (Psalm 63:1).

If we do not seek Him, we may gain the whole world, but we will lose our soul to the fires of hell throughout eternity (John 3:18: Matthew 16:26). The better choice is to search for an intimate union with God with the entire focus of our heart (Jeremiah 29:13).

God created us as an awesome and wonderfully made body, soul and spirit and placed our soul in our innermost being. We find true rest for our soul in God through salvation (Psalm 62:1; Jeremiah 6:16).

When our soul is depressed and disturbed within us, we can put our hope in God, praising Him in the good times and the bad (Psalm 42:11). He works out even the most horrific details of our life for our good (Romans 8:28).

Prayer:

Father God, You created us so that we prosper in life in the same manner that our soul prospers (3 John 1:2). If our soul is overwhelmed and depressed, it affects our body and spirit as well. Help us to see that we will prosper only as we love You foremost in our heart, walk in obedience to Your precepts, keep Your commandments, hold fast to You and serve You with our whole heart and soul (Joshua 22:5).

We praise Your holy name from our innermost being, because You have delivered us from the destructive pathway of sin (Psalm 71:23, 103:1). Our whole being waits for You, and our hope is based on Your Word (Psalm 130:5). Your encouragement of us is sweeter than a honeycomb, feeds our soul and heals our body (Proverbs 16:24).

Thought for the Day:

In our final days on this earth, we will clearly see that God did not fail to deliver any of His promises to us; if we appreciate all that He does for us now and walk only in His will, we will reap the benefits of an eternal life blessed by His love. - Joshua 23:14

True Rest

Our human will drives us to stay in control of our life and to live it as we choose, rather than in submission to any created or divine being. We feel the need to manage our life and the life of all of those who have influence over our existence in any way. We do not want anyone, who could possibly disturb the orderly peace we create in our sphere of reality, to have the control. If anyone tries to disrupt our peace, we reject or fight them with every ounce of effort we can muster.

However, true rest comes from submitting to God’s will for our life. In reality, we could never attain the amount of peace through our own vigilance over the order of our life. Our true victory is in responding in kindness to those who attempt to abuse us and to rely heavily on the hand of God to use every trial for His glory. When the situation is impossible to bear, we do not have to remain in an unsafe or unsavory situation, and we can remove our self to an alternate space to await God’s will in the situation.

There is absolutely never any reason to divorce our self from any person or situation; but if possible, we simply reposition our self in order to have some space and protection from the situation. We wait on God to move in the circumstance and to work it all out for our benefit (Romans 8:28). He often takes His time in these issues, giving the other party plenty of time to repent and come to their senses. He will influence their decisions, but He will never force His will on them.

Regardless of their choices, God will always protect His Saints, even to the point of death. Even those Believers, imprisoned for their faith and unable to escape, find that He sustains them from the inside out. He gives them His supernatural comfort and joy, which surpasses all of our horrifying circumstances they are forced to experience (Philippians 4:6-8). They live in victory and in praise for the honor and glory of our Savior’s name: Jesus.

Prayer:

Father God, we start dying to self by denying our flesh in simple areas, such as that second piece of cake; then we soon develop less of a desire for carnal appetites and more of a desire to live in submission to Your will. We start this walk of total dependence on You by developing quiet times in our daily schedule in order to sit in Your presence. Even in Your silence, we can still pray as You bring people to our mind. Ultimately, we spend our time in praise for who You are and all that You do for us. We reap intimacy with You and have fewer areas in our life, on which the devil can feed.

Thought for the Day:

We live in quietness and confidence, which is our strength; and we dwell in peace and safety forever. – Isaiah 30:15, 32:17-18