The Beautiful Mystery of the Soul

The longer I live, the more I am in awe of the mystery of the human soul.  This eternal part of each of us that somehow instinctively knows that the ways of this world are completely out of whack and that we were made for more.  This part of us that seeks the hard road rather than the easy road because it knows that something worth fighting for is its own reward and so much more valuable than any simple pleasure easily attained. This inner life that, when we will be still and quiet and humble, can commune with our Creator God and be restored no matter how wayward it has become.  The Bible tells us that it is the Spirit of God himself that woos each and every soul to Himself.  It also says that we can grieve that Spirit and quench its power in our lives if we ignore it long enough.  I know of no greater tragedy.

I am currently reading a book called In God's Underground, written by Richard Wurmbrand, a Lutheran minister during the dark days of communist rule in Romania.  He was put in prison for his faith more than once during that time.  The first stint was for 9 years.  He went into prison and his one and only son was a 9-year old boy.  He came out of prison to be introduced to his son, the 18 year old man, without being allowed a single visit from him during those years.  Such a loss of years and time, and yet God had preserved both of their souls exquisitely.  On the night of his unexpected return from prison (they simply opened the gates and let him go one day) his son, Mihai, said to him, "Father, you've gone through so much. I want to know what you've learned from all your sufferings."  Wurmbrand put his arm around his grown son and said, "Mihai, I've nearly forgotten my Bible in all this time. But four things were always in my mind. First, that there is a God. Secondly, Christ is our Savior. Thirdly, there is eternal life. And fourthly, love is the best of ways."  My son said, "That was all I wanted." Later he told his father that he had decided to become a pastor.  Two souls who had gone through so much heartache and pain, poverty and suffering - but perfectly sustained and more beautiful than they were at the beginning.

Once Wurmbrand had settled back in with his family at his very meager home in the attic of a building owned by another (their house had been taken by the government when he went to prison), he said, "Now that I was free, I longed in the depths of my heart for quietness and rest. But communism was working everywhere to complete the destruction of the Church. The peace I desired would have been an escape from reality and dangerous for my soul."  It is only God who can put such depth into the human soul.  Such selflessness is actually soulfulness!  Denying the self for the benefit of the eternal soul.  This is not harmful or sadistic, this is exchanging the temporal for the eternal and it is wise beyond earth's wisdom.  When everything in us and everyone around us is telling us that retirement from the cause is in order - you've done enough - surely someone else can take up the torch now. To have a soul that knows that its very existence is owed to a Savior who did not stop until the fight was won.  To have a soul that knows that it will be sustained by God through far worse than the mind or heart believe it to be able to bear.  To have a soul that seeks to grow and expand and draw closer to the God who created it and wooed it from the beginning.  To have a soul that trusts in the reality of the perfect plan and the power of God more than in the temporal realities it can see and feel.

This is the goal.  What interesting, mysterious, paradoxical ways God can and does bring it about in each of us.
May I never curse my circumstances without first examining their soil for soul-growth properties.  It could be that what the world calls prison, my soul recognizes as true freedom.

Isaiah 46:4 NIV, "Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you."

---