Have You Been Listening To Your Soul Lately? Series

We, as Christians, have learned to stand before God and pray. Not only did Jesus pray almost all the time, but He also taught us how to pray. He gave us the Lord's Prayer as a sample to follow. A good portion of that sample prayer aims to worship God; his presence, his power and his character. We all depend on every bit of God's attributes in order to make it through life. We also need his creative ways of helping us so we can survive the enemy's vicious curveballs and conquer the challenges.

The second half of that prayer is about voicing our needs such as asking for our daily provisions. Since our all-knowing God is well aware of all that; why did Jesus mention it during his model prayer? It certainly wasn't because God needed a reminder. This most amazing source of good; and power; and knowledge; and wisdom; and everything in between doesn't need a reminder from his own creation. But we do.

Let's start from the back of the Bible where Revelation 6:9 says. "When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne." And we may as well touch Matthew 16:26 where we read, "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?"

These scriptures state that a soul is mortal; meaning that it dies. They describe the earthly living part of a person. It is not to be mistaken for the spirit of the person which is eternal. If too greedy or too aggressive about the notions of this world; we could be watching our soul be buried and not even realize it's been gone.

Another layer of our earthly presence is being mentioned in Joshua 22:5, "But take diligent heed to do the commandment and the law, which Moses the servant of the Lord charged you, to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cleave unto him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul." This particular scripture is suggesting a slight comparison between the heart and the soul. So they're not the same thing. The soul contains all earthly experiences and holds on to the details just like a computer does. However; the heart happens to be the cavity where all those previous experiences are being processed. It contains the emotions such as the joy and the tears, and much much more. It also possesses all the hope and aspirations that we desire to have in this life.

So what happens when we go before God and tell him about ourselves? He listens. He hears every word we utter. And He also knows every word we don't utter. But a deeper healing takes place when we actually give our soul a voice and listen to it express itself. Just like there's only so much storage space to a computer; our soul also needs to empty itself regularly in order for us to know more and more about ourselves. Not to mention the fact that a spoken word has energy and power. God gave us that ability for a reason. He expects us to use it to help and heal ourselves as well as to help and heal others.

Blessings...