HOW'S YOUR SOUL?

There once was a country town which was situated around a stunning, crystal clear river. Children played peacefully on its banks, making rock pools and sandcastles, and its streams sustained the village. 

Higher up the mountain there was a hired worker, who kept the river free from debris and pollution - the town knew him as the ‘keeper of the streams.’ One day however, the council decided that their money was best spent on more pressing projects, and so the keeper of the streams was let go, leaving for another town. 

At first, no one noticed his absence. Weeks, months passed, and slowly, the stream grew darker in colour. Debris appeared, and the beauty of the river was lost to murkier waters. After hearing the people’s complaints, the council re-hired the keeper of the streams to keep the river pure. He graciously returned, and the town again enjoyed the sustenance of the river in their village life.

The stream is your soul; you are the keeper. 

(Story adapted from the book “Soul Keeping” by John Ortberg).

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Again, I pose the question: how is your soul doing? 

We live in a world of pain, of pressure, of grief and loss. There is busyness and brokenness which can easily weigh us down. Our souls, the integrated humanity of our mind, body, will, spirit, can pay the price, and our experience of life can change from joy to becoming downcast. From lightness to heaviness. 

Psalm 42 contains insight into such pain, with the Psalmist having ‘tears for food’ (v3), and suffering ‘mortal agony’ as he is taunted by his foes (v10). The repeated phrase (which therefore deserves careful attention) reads:

“Why, my soul, are you downcast?

    Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

    for I will yet praise him,

    my Savior and my God.” (Ps. 42:5, 11)

It is almost like the Psalmist is speaking to his own soul. ‘Why are you downcast?’ he asks. ‘Put your hope in God!’ The Psalm flips through raw heartache expressed before God, a desperate yearning for His presence, and a hope inspiring remembrance of His goodness experienced in the past. He demonstrates how to pray earnestly and honestly to God, with real pain interspersed with exhortations to his own soul to hold onto hope amidst this suffering. 

Can I encourage you today - bring your pain to God. Be honest with him; He can take it. Speak to your soul and call it to hold onto hope in Him. Remember the goodness of God in your life. Look backwards to your past if you can’t see/feel it now. Be gentle with yourself.

By doing this we, with God, gradually ‘clear the debris’ from higher up the mountain. We ‘keep the streams’ of our soul pure, so that over time God can use us to become sources of life and sustenance to the ‘village’ in which He places us.