I try to pray to God each day that my family and I would please Him in thought, word and deed. Recently, He stopped me and said,
“You need to add one more thing to that list.”
“What else is there, Lord?”
“Your soul. Please me in soul.”
“Isn’t my soul covered in thought, word, and deed?”
I rehearsed in my mind the elements of the soul: mind, will, and emotions. “Lord, my thoughts are part of my mind. What I say and do comes out of my will, right? Doesn’t that about cover it?
“Take a look at your emotions and see how greatly they affect what you think, say, and do.”
As I focused on His question, I pondered the truth that our spirits, created by and joined with God’s, are to rule over both our souls and bodies. The problem is, they rarely do. For some of us, it is our bodies that take the lead, but for most I believe it is our souls: our mind, will, and emotions. Most assuredly, it is our emotions that often dictate our thoughts and what comes out of our mouths, as well as the actions we take.
I thought about how often emotions like anger, unforgiveness frustration, resentment, fear, discouragement, sorrow, pride, as well as positive ones like thankfulness, joy, and elation affect our thoughts, words, and actions. When we allow our emotions to rule us, even when they are not dark ones but stem from sincere compassion and empathy, we are not listening to Holy Spirit. We jump in, often without God’s wisdom or direction, to ‘rescue’ others. It all seems so right and good, but it may not be. We may actually be interfering in plans He has for others. He may be calling another of His children, for example, to step up to the plate and get involved, resulting in blessing for both parties. He may have an even bigger solution than we are trying to provide. We should never stop being compassionate or helping others, but taking time to pray for His direction beforehand is wisdom He prizes.
Our souls; our emotions, our wills, our beliefs of all kinds; can lead us into prolonged thoughts, words and deeds which can be life or death-giving. Letting our emotions direct us, instead of our spirits submitted to God’s, can get us in a world of trouble, or even derail situations in ways we may never know.
The Father made us all so different. Yet the principle still applies. Some of us are wildly empathetic, some of us are more reserved, more cerebral, or more reticent to interact or intervene. Because we are so different, we are often bewildered by the attitudes, words, and actions (or inactions) of others. God appears to love variety in His creation, whether it be human, animal, plant, or mineral. Yet all of us are to be submitted to the guidance of His loving Spirit. Some of His creation has no choice, but we do. And therein is the rub.
There we can find people screaming at one another and spouting all kinds of hateful things in the name of ‘right’. Or we can see cold, calculated, intellectual evisceration. Both are deadly. We can even see twisted compassion (see 8/12 post) spouting both of the above.
When we do not take time to lay our emotional and intellectual responses to situations at the feet of Jesus for direction, we can grieve Him deeply by our thoughts, words and deeds. Like Paul, we may be so sure we are right and yet be deadly wrong, even in doing something seemingly altruistic His planning, His timing, His chosen cast of participants, His resources, His truth , His ways spoken in His way….bring Life, Freedom, and Transformation.
Take time today and every day to ask Him about His perspective, whether it be concerning world situations or your very personal ones. Let’s ask Him daily to help us submit our personalities, our thought life, our words, our actions, our entire souls to His Spirit so that we please Him by bearing good fruit (instead of unknowingly bearing the outwardly beautiful but internally rotten kind.)
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Hebrews 4:12 (NIV): “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” —-Hebrews 4: 12
Here is a song that reflects the heart of my post:
https://youtu.be/ABWnLjXer10?si=mCBg8V6D2-oXqH4m
