The Soul
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Rest in the Lord, My Soul
Rest in the Lord, my soul;
Commit to Him Thy way.
What to thy sight seems dark as nigh
To Him is bright as day.
Rest in the Lord, my soul;
He planned for thee thy life.
Brings fruit from rain, brings good from pain,
And peace and joy from strife.
Rest in the Lord, my soul;
This fretting weakens thee,
Why not be still, accept His will?
Thou shalt his glory see.
-Author Unknown
from [www.bible](http://www.bible)truthpublishers.com
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The Good and Beautiful You by James Bryan Smith
Soul Keeping by John Ortberg
Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard
Sacred Rest by Sandra Dalton Smith
Satisfy Your Soul by Dr. Bruce Demarest
Discovering Soul Care by Mindy Caliguire
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“Without the soul, the human person is reduced to a self.”
-James Bryan Smith in Good and Beautiful You
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But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. Deuteronomy 4:29
Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. Psalm 62:1
Jesus replied, ‘Love the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Matthew 22:37
“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul.” Genesis 2:7 KJV
“Pay attention to the welfare of you innermost being.”* **Proverbs 4:23b**
He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. Psalm 23:2-3
Psalm 62:5-8 (NRSV and the Passion compiled) For God alone my soul waits in silence. For my hope is from him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress. I shall not be shaken. For He alone is my safe place. His wrap-around presence always protects me. So why would I let worry paralyze me? Even when troubles multiply around me, trust in him at all times. O people, pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us.
The Song of the Soul
by Wendy Gerdes
Sitting at the Holland, I become lost in the swells of the cello, imagining myself playing the song effortlessly, swaying to the music. The cellist and the cello move as one as beauty fills theauditorium. I imagine myself being one who could play so beautifully and watching it appear so effortless, I almost believe I can.
But even in my imagination, I know if you put me and that same cello in that same auditorium, nothing would come out except halting sounds and even that would take great effort.
If I wanted to, I could blame the instrument or even blame the auditorium for not responding correctly, but in reality the problem with the music would be with the player. I have not been trained to be one who can play so beautifully. The capability is there to play at least something beautiful, but it would take discipline and time on my part to learn. I can even own the instrument and dress the part, but that doesn’t mean I will ever learn how to play it.
The skilled player is formed in the hidden place with the teacher.This scenario reminds me of our lives. Our soul is the internal player and our life is the instrument -the instrument our soul plays.
Out of our life comes beauty, but also ugliness. When we see anger, envy, unforgiveness and other sins, oftentimes we chastise the instrument. We try to tune the instrument, put up external restraints, order our lives with large boundaries to keep ourselves from sinning or at least try to appear loving.
Our lives look a little better, but when something unexpected or hard happens in life, the instrument immediately goes out of tune and we are left wondering why our first response is anxiety, anger, fear or unforgiveness. We want the instrument to sound better but we just cannot seem to make it play something beautiful, but we know it can.
We hear about abundant life, being Christlike, joy, and all of the promises. We know there is beauty, but the instrument will not play or if it plays for a minute, it is halting and full of effort. Some of us keep trying but begin to believe the music is for the next life. Others of us just give up, believing there is not actually music to be had.
But what if this music is for our lives now? What if we began to turn our attention to the soul? What if we paid more attention to the place deep within us that actually plays our life and dictates our responses and stopped trying to fix the instrument?
There is a place in us where goodness and beauty can be cultivated and grow, infiltrating even the most difficult places we find ourselves in. What if we began to understand when our lives are playing wrong notes, the problem isn’t the instrument but the player?
The needs of the soul are often buried deep in our busy lives and we can even feel guilty in our results driven world taking time to tend to it. A sick soul wreaks havoc in our lives, but a healthy soul is the place from where life with God flows, truly changing us and things around us. It is therewhere we become different kinds of people, but we have to pay attention.
Proverbs 4:23 says,
“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”
We have to cultivate our hearts and learn to stop long enough to hear the deeper and driving place in our lives, the player of our beautiful lives. When wrong notes are played, we can explore with Jesus what it is in us that He wants to transform. There are so many ways to do that. Wemay find ourselves momentarily shaken, but we can center our soul in Him. He will meet us inthe middle and His disposition toward us is kind. He is our loving teacher and not a harsh taskmaster.
When we find a wrong note is playing, we have a loving Father who wants to find us in the stillness and speak to that place, bring healing to a wound, impart a truer way of thinking and make us ones who actually are loving. There is a way to a deeper life and one that plays beautiful symphonies even while here on earth. The Holy Spirit is our helper. We just have to turn our attention to Him and He will transform our soul.
Link to Wendy's blog