Long Story Short
September, 2010

The concept of the soul is, for many today, a quaint notion from a by-gone era. With contemporary understanding of emotions, personality types, mental disorders, hormones, and the workings of the human brain, we’ve just about explained it away. We know our souls need saving. Beyond that, well, it’s kind of like an appendix; we know we have one but we’re not real clear about why it’s there.

In both the ancient biblical languages (Greek and Hebrew), the words translated into English as “soul” have the sense of wind or breath. It’s the idea that we are alive only because God has breathed life into us (Gen. 2:7).

The soul is not some vague, ethereal concept. It is the most real thing about you and me. It is the essence of my real self, the part of me that is eternal. It’s the part of me that’s created in the image of God. I was taught in seminary that the soul is the seat of human will, understanding, and personality. Though God created us as integrated beings, sometimes we need to differentiate what is physical (mortal) from what is spiritual (eternal).

We usually recognize the longings of our physical desires when they arise. We recognize hunger and thirst, and while we may not always make the best choices, in general we know how to satisfy those longings. But do you know how to recognize your soul’s longing for God?

In Psalm 42:1-2, we read, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?”

Sometimes we misdiagnose that longing and try to satisfy our soul’s longing for God with other things. Maybe that’s why some of us eat too much or drink too much. Maybe that’s why we try to fill the holes in our hearts with wealth or power or sex or recognition.

If we ever learn to live out of our souls, we might just discover that our insane pace of life, our obsessions with accumulation and consumerism, our constant need for noise and activity are all issues that keep us from being connected with our real self.

The early disciples of John Wesley often asked each other, “How is it with your soul?” I think that’s a question worth resurrecting. As we walk together in community, we can help each other learn to listen to our souls. Together we can learn to differentiate between our soul’s longing for God and all the counterfeit desires our spiritual enemy throws at us.