The man answered, “‘You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.’ And, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
A Soul Divided has been the hardest of the four posts to write for sure- mostly because the nature of the soul itself. Hubby and I have spent so much time hashing out this post together. We have a wonderful time hashing out things together.
The very first thing that you have to is understand what exactly a “soul” is. After looking at many commentaries and bible dictionaries and the general consensus seems to be that your soul is your life, or better yet your being or who you are.
I liked the way the New Illustrated Bible Commentary (Thomas Nelson) put it best,
Soul may simply refers to life’s is true f the same Greek word translated “Life” in verse 25. It seems best to say it looks at the basic self.
This is referring to the passage below.
Matther 16:24-28
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow me. 25 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. 26 And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?[a] Is anything worth more than your soul? 27 For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father and will judge all people according to their deeds. 28 And I tell you the truth, some standing here right now will not die before they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.”
And specifically honing in verses 25-26.
And this my friends the basis for most Christian movies out there. (NOT ALL just most). The story line and circumstances are different but the decision is almost always the same.
“Am I going to live the way Jesus wants me to or am I going to compromise to gain money (hmmm sounds like yesterdays post), a relationship, a job promotion, fame” and , the list can go on and on.
It’s not just a “movie thing”.
I know that many Christians joke that Christian movies can be all the same. BUT the reality is we are all every day, many times a day faced with moments of “Compromise”. Now Granted it may not look like that’s what is going on- if we don’t stay on top of our decisions, one tiny “insignificant ” decision can lead to a compromising moment that can be life changing.
When we start making those “insignificant” compromises our souls become divided. And before long we find ourselves in verse 26. We have gained the “whole” world, but lost our soul (who we are ).
A Personal Story
Initially I had a vague example of this- it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. And then as I was writing this a perfect example came to mind from my own life.
If we rewind all the way back to August and the beginning of this journey we now find ourselves winding down together, I talked about how I had gotten LOST.
Well, here’s the thing, I was living with a divided heart and soul. And it all started with fear. I let fear of what people thought of me and my writing take control. I didn’t consider what God thought of it. All I cared about what the negative comments – AND it was coming from one specific person. And I let that fear take over. (Yes I was doing all the Christians checkboxes and praying for that person). I would give it to God and Yank it right back and hold onto that.
Clearly God didn’t have all of my heart. Then this changed how and what I wrote. I had lost my purpose in writing AND in my ministry- I changed who I was and what I stood for because of this person. And so my soul became divided.
And when I had a divided heart and soul…..
I began to buy into all sorts of other lies. The main one? This is how everyone views me….INCLUDING GOD.
WHOA!
And just a note. I wasn’t trying to gain the “whole world…I was just trying to make this person happy. I was trying to gain peace…..from the wrong place and I was willing to sacrifice who I was and let fear take over to do so.
I didn’t wake up one day and just decide that’s what I was going to do. It started with a baby step and then another and another, until before long I didn’t really recognize myself.
A very vivid picture of my divided heart and soul
So about a month into the 100 day blogging project I started looking for a draft of a blog post I wanted o finish.
I knew it was saved as a draft so I began searching and what I came to realize was I had A LOT OF DRAFTS. Blog posts that I sat down to write and many of them never making it farther than the title. And it’s funny as I read through those posts I can remember EXACTlY what happened. I got scared and I started living in the “”what if…”
And I just let myself get distracted And I changed what I was doing . During that time I have a whole lot of Happy Homemaker Mondays and Thankfulness Challenges (because that surely can’t get me in trouble right?) Don’t get me wrong I love these posts! But they were easy and non-confrontational….RIGHT??
WRONG I have gotten in trouble MANY years ago about sharing a verse that had impacted me at a conference I had attended the weekend before. I had no purpose behind it , no commentary with it JUST the passage of scripture used. The result of that confrontation over that very? I shut down my whole blog for over a year. Now there was a whole lot of other reasons for that AND it was the wisest thing for me to do during that time. BUT can you guess what came back to haunt me as soon as this blog went live again?
I had given it to God but as soon as it went live I yanked it right back and when this other person started unleashing negative comments I held onto it even tighter.
This is just one little piece
We all have things like this We all have made little choices here and there that lead to being and living divided lives.
And it is a daily choice for me….and for you to not be. At any point I can yank back those things…or things that happened 25 or 30 years ago.
I love what verse 25 says “If you try to hang onto your life you will lose it, but if you give up your life for my sake you will save it”
I chose to give up my fears and my version of peace to follow what God has called me to do- write here. And ya know what? I found a different kind of peace. The peace of knowing I am doing exactly what God wants me to do! This peace doesn’t require me to strive for anything- it just requires me to follow. Is it easy? Nope this post is a great example. I really had a lot of turmoil over this one and I think it was because God was really working out this example in my own life.
But it is completely and totally worth it!
What have we become
What have we become? Are we fearful? Anxious? Angry? Bitter? Or are we solidly rooted in our relationship with Jesus? Are we constantly Yanking back what we give to him and are defined by those things?
The Great news is we don’t have to stay there. There is no magic formula and it takes moment by moment choosing to live like Christ. It’s refusing to yank back what you have given to him. It’s trusting him with all of it, not just some of it. And I want to be very clear here- trusting God is long term. You cannot just declare that you have trusted him long enough. THAT isn’t what faith is about!
Thanks so much
I am so very glad that you joined me today! Let me know your thoughts in the comments below and if you are new here please introduce yourself in the comments below.
You can check out the other posts in the choosing Courage -100 day Blogging Project here..
