Are we in soul denial?

As the organizer, the soul needs to function well in order for the rest of the parts of who I am to work well. When I am using my whole self in any endeavor of life, a healthy soul is absolutely essential. What are these areas?

Renovation of the Heart lists these examples:

Creativity, sleep, sex, parenting, relationships, health and meaningful work.

In our time, many of our most “brilliant” thinkers have dismissed the concept of the soul and its importance in integrating our lives in healthy ways. So, how’s it going?

Look at each of the aspects of human life and you tell me. One example is sleep. According to Archibald Hart, in The Anxiety Cure, half of all adult Americans suffer from some form of insomnia. Without a good night’s sleep, everything else is affected.

Or take sex. Is it is a private, intimate bonding experience for husbands and wives where “two become one,” on occasion bringing about new life for the next generation? Is that the purpose of sexual relations as designed by God? If so, how are we doing?

Marriage, parenting, work, friendships, love of neighbor—- how are we doing???

If the scholars who say we are simply “particles and progress” are correct, then what is their answer? Even if you deny the soul, you still have to get up in the morning and live life. I say, good luck scientific materialists (those who say the physical is all there is), but I am going with the evidence there is more to it than this.

Meaning and purpose are essential ingredients of a healthy life. Scientific materialism has no delivery system for this. In fact, it is more accurate to say that soul ruin is just around the corner for those stuck on the “life is only about me” motif.

Fortunately, we are not buying into the despair of hopelessness and meaninglessness that has been such a staple of the "intelligentsia" (actually, with enough gentle prodding, you will find they don’t believe it either) for the last 100 years. We need to get to the soul of the matter, and more and more people are willing to look.

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When we think of soul, there are three main ways to think of it.

First, is a vague characteristic a person has or doesn't have.

“He’s got soul.”

Second, is an immaterial entity that is contained within them.

“I love you down to my very soul.”

Third, is the belief it doesn’t exist at all. We are completely physical and any other sense of who we are comes from electrical impulses in our brain circuitry and chemical reactions.

“It’s just how we are wired.”

Dallas Willard offers a fourth view. Soul is beyond our body. It contains the body, but it is much bigger than that. Your soul is the organizing force that holds together heart, the mind’s thoughts and feelings, the body, and our relationships. The soul is the CEO of who we are.

According to Willard, our soul is given to us by God at conception and through it creates and organizes our DNA and all the life that follows.

This may all seem strange, but if our souls are real and organizing our lives together, then we are missing out on key knowledge of our existence, as this is not a standard course of study in high school, university, or even churches nowadays. Let's consider the soul…

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We are looking at the main elements of who we are according to the book, Renovation of the Heart (Student Edition), by Dallas Willard and Randy Frazee. We are not specific isolated ingredients, but we are united and enmeshed into one unique human being. Our soul is the glue that holds our heart, mind, body, and social life together. The soul coordinates our lives and manages the interaction of the other parts of who we are.

I live my life through my soul. I am hardly conscious of its work. The soul is not physical, but it is real. It is hard to understand the awesome nature of my soul, and of the five parts of who I am, it is the most involved. The soul responds to all aspects of my life.

God desires to transform my soul. It is not holy and pure on its own, but needs renovating like all the other parts of who I am. If I want to be like Jesus, I need to be changed from the very depths of who I am.

This week we will look at the vision to transform my soul. This is the most challenging aspect of who I am to explain, but it is essential we understand. We have to have the “big picture” view of everything else.

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Pay it forward.

This is another important tool for the transformation of social life. The film, Pay it Forward, brought this concept out in a powerful way. Starring Haley Joel Osment, Helen Hunt, Kevin Spacey, and Jesus (well actually James Caviezel, who played, “Jesus” in The Passion of the Christ and, therefore, I keep seeing him as Jesus), shows what might happen if you reach out for the sake of another.

Do something “big” for someone else, and then tell them they have to do something “big” for three other people who do it for three other people, and so on. In other words, you can’t return the good deed, you have to pay it forward. Movie critics don’t buy it. Here is Roger Ebert has to say.

That's the theory behind "Pay It Forward," a movie that might have been more entertaining if it didn't believe it. It's a seductive theory, but in the real world, altruism is less powerful than selfishness, greed, nepotism, xenophobia, tribalism and paranoia. If you doubt me, take another look at the front pages.

I have two responses for Mr. Ebert.

1. Roger, have you ever tried it?

2. Jesus would certainly beg to differ.

It's not that willing the good of your neighbor and taking action on it, “loving thy neighbor,” can’t be done, it's we don’t try it enough. We don’t realize where the chain of good begins. Jesus tells us.

I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey me, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father and remain in his love. I have told you this so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you. (John 15:10-12)

The love Jesus experiences in the Trinity, is given to me, and I pay it forward to someone else, who in turn will be influenced by my action, and will have the opportunity to pay it forward.

Apologies to Roger Ebert, but this theory works in the real world.

The real world is where God rules, God’s Kingdom, and if all the parties involved are living transformed lives, pay it forward is as natural as selfishness is in a world that doesn’t recognize the transforming power of God.

As we reach out in love to others, and they are under the same power of the Holy Spirit they will bless us as well as bless others. Can you imagine what it would be like if we all lived in communities where people were transformed disciples of the living God, Jesus? Pay it forward would be no big deal. You can live in such a community.

It starts with you.

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Let genuine love rule.

Romans 12:9-10 (NLT)  
    Don't just pretend that you love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Stand on the side of the good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.

If I am following the model of Jesus, I am not going to put on a false act when I am with you and have another attitude behind your back.

If someone is a challenge, it gives you a chance to expand your “love character.” You stretch your potency when you desire to bless someone who doesn't necessarily wish to bless you back. When I am being transformed I love you like Jesus loves you. I desire you to be blessed and I act. I honor you, meaning I put real value on your well being.

Genuine love builds up rather than tears down. This means I try to catch you at your best. I do not make any attempts to put you on the defensive where you are less likely to respond graciously. There is a phrase used that sums this up.

“Anxiety producing behavior.”

This occurs when I try to make people anxious on purpose to somehow advance my own agenda or gain more attention on my “rightness.”  I may exaggerate the negative. The boy who cried, “Wolf,” and Chicken Little, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling,” are classic cases of this. Genuine love takes the time to know what is necessary to put people at ease, even when dealing with conflict and disagreement. 

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The second means I would like to highlight to transform social life is to lose the mask. We present ourselves as authentically as possible.

Attack and withdrawal result in our setting up huge walls against being vulnerable. We are likely to put on “masks” to hide who we truly in an attempt them.

We wear masks in order to look better and achieve recognition and reward for being someone we are not. Especially tempting in a church community. One mask for our Christian friends and one mask for day-to-day life.

A third mask is to be influenced by Jesus, but hiding our love for him so we don't appear too sold out to our friends. This seems strange, but Christians may show signs of real growth in faith, but try to look like someone else at work or at school.

All masks must go. This doesn’t mean that our lives become therapy sessions. It's not about “brutal honesty” and such. Not about baring the effects of my childhood to the guy sitting next to me at McDonald's. This does mean we need to be real with people around us. Our public and private lives begin to match. We give up using deceit, manipulation and defensiveness in our relationships. Our identity comes from God and he makes it possible for us to face the world unmasked as our best, true selves.

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Being transformed in our own lives, our families are influenced. As our families are transform, we influence the community around us. We see times in Christian history when transformation becomes so powerful that whole communities change.

Consider the Welsh Revival. In 1904 there was an intentional spiritual reawakening that swept through Wales.  The country itself was changed. Taverns are emptied. Days when the courtrooms are empty. Even animals are affected.

The small ponies the miners used to move their coal cars underground become confused. They are so used to the curses of their masters, that when miners stop swearing, the ponies don’t understand the commands and don’t know how to follow!

The ideal in our circle of sufficiency is we join God in Trinitarian love and through our relationship with him, we in turn love others in our circle. They join God as well and love us back. Lives are enriched as a result. Together, we share the love outside the circle and we impact the wider community.

We are not so naive to expect everyone will give love after receiving it. This includes those in our circle of influence, as well as out. Yet, we are energized to love as Christ loves knowing that whether it is returned or not it expands us. To be in God’s will is a blessed place.

The first means I use to transform my social life is to “put on Christ.” My Heavenly Father gives me my identity through Jesus.

Perhaps you are familiar with identity theft. This is where someone steals your credit card numbers and/or social security number and begins to make purchases under your name. Sometimes making large transactions as if they were you! There are safeguards to prevent this crime; to protect my identity.

Yet, in the big picture, my true identity is that I am the beloved son of the Father. I am secure. This makes it possible to live a life of self-denial and service toward others. This makes it possible to forgive others and  bless rather than curse. This is a new life.

    Col. 3:10 (NLT)  
    In its place you have clothed yourselves with a brand-new nature that is continually being renewed as you learn more and more about Christ, who created this new nature within you.

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I just hope they don’t steal kid’s candy…

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I just hope they don’t steal kid’s candy…

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