Another year gone, it seems like the older I get the years go by faster and faster. My kids are growing up so fast. It seems only like yesterday that we still had kids in car seats! Now today our oldest, Madison, is already in the drivers seat learning how to drive and playing high school volleyball. Our middle daughter, Cheyenne, will join the youth in middle of the year and is in jr. high. My youngest, Brody, is almost as tall as me and can beat me in basketball. I love watching my kids grow up, having serious conversations with them, guiding them and helping them. They have their whole life ahead of them and I can’t wait to see where God will take them. Yet, seeing them growing up so fast reminds me how short our time is here on earth.
Many things have happened in the past year, and yet because of this pandemic a lot still seems the same. If you're like me the constant question is when is this going to be over? Yes, I know Covid is here to stay and is something we will have to learn to live with. However, when will the pandemic be over? So many people we love and care about are sick and in the hospital. When will it ever be somewhat normal? So much fear, uncertainty, and division. There are christians who feel that if you don’t get vaccine, you are not being loving. Other christians feel it is wrong to get vaccine. Feeling that vaccine is harmful to our bodies and the loving thing to do is not to get it. Telling their neighbors why they should not get it.
What and how should we as Christians living in a time like this? Where are you placing your trust? To whom do you first go for wisdom and direction?
I’m not here to tell you what you should or should not do with the vaccine, how you choose to handle the pandemic or take care of your family. However, I am here to tell you that I believe that God is calling you to turn to Him. Cry out to Him. I believe for many of us, this pandemic and uncertainty has made us sick. Not just physically sick, but soul sick. We are desperate. Desperate for healing and hope. I don’t think our spiritual health and physical health are even in the same universe of importance when it comes to God. He values our spiritual health a million times more than the tent we live in. We value this tent more than any other thing. Why do we leave Bibles unopened our entire lives but will spend every bit of energy, time and money trying to stay alive? Why do we spend precious time and energy on wrinkles, flabby arms, and the next miraculous diet? We invest in what we value. Period.
We should value the gift of our bodies, but we should be fanatics about the health of our souls. God is invisible and so are we. We live in bodies, but what makes us who we are is our soul. No one can see that part of us. Our eyes are windows to our souls, but our souls are very deep and hidden… even to us. Only God can give us an MRI of the soul. Only the Great Physician can diagnose soul sickness. He knows the cause and He knows the cure. We don’t… ever. It has to be revealed.
Proverbs 2:3-5
IF you call out for insight
and raise your voice for understanding,
IF you seek it like silver
and search for it as for hidden treasures,
THEN you will understand the fear of the LORD
and find the knowledge of God.
Proverbs 2:3-5
“To lift up my soul to anything other than God is immediate sickness.”
To lift up my soul to anything other than God is immediate sickness. It may start small, but it is a soul cancer and barely detectable. Just like cancer left untreated, it grows until you find yourself debilitated, and it leaves us with spiritual apathy. If I get consumed by anything other than God, I will be destroyed and so will you. Who may ascend the mountain of the LORD? Who may stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear deceitfully.
Psalm 24:3-4
I want to ascend the hill of the Lord. Like Moses, I long to be called humble before God. How did Moses become humble? He ascended the hill of the Lord and he stood in His Presence. He lifted up his soul to his God and no one else. God longs for all of us to live there.
What do we need to do when we find out our soul is sick? We need to go to the Good Shepherd.
He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Psalm 23:2-3
The Greek definition for “restores” means “to turn back; return.”
When I turn to God in desperation, my soul turns back to Him and He restores it. He makes my soul healthy again. Just as our body takes time to heal, so does our soul. Be kind to yourself as the Great Physician makes you lie down. He knows we are tired and weary, soul sick and desperate, return to him, seek him and let Him love you and heal you.
Soul sickness is meant to make us desperate. It is meant to drive us to pray, and literally lay ourselves out before God and beg Him to open our mind to what is happening inside our souls. We are to call out, cry for understanding, to seek it like silver, search for it as if we were looking for a hidden treasure. In other words spend more time in prayer, in the word, and with God. If we spend more time searching for answers other than from God, our lives will be filled with anxiety, trouble. Jeremiah shows us exactly what it looks like when we place our trust in anything other than God
Jeremiah 17:5–8
5 This is what the Lord says:
The man who trusts in mankind,
who makes human flesh his strength
and turns his heart from the Lord is cursed.
6 He will be like a juniper in the Arabah;
he cannot see when good comes
but dwells in the parched places in the wilderness,
in a salt land where no one lives.
7 The man who trusts in the Lord,
whose confidence indeed is the Lord, is blessed.
8 He will be like a tree planted by water:
it sends its roots out toward a stream,
it doesn’t fear when heat comes,
and its foliage remains green.
It will not worry in a year of drought
or cease producing fruit.
So in 2022 who will you trust? Who will you turn to?
IF we turn back, THEN our healing will come.