The Original Soul Train
The Original Soul Train
By Wendy Wippel
All of us have sung (sometime in our lives, right?)—that great old hymn “It is Well with my Soul”. “When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,when sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul”. Singing it’s easy. Living it? An entirely different story.
The point of the hymn—made clear in the first two lines I quoted, is that your soul –the spiritual part of your body, gets fat and happy when you finally get to the point where you can really truly–trust your invisible Creator, no matter what the circumstances. Even when your life seems to be in shambles. I mean Country-western -song bad: The crops washed out, momma died and the dog-done-run-off bad.
The first step in the process God lays out in the Psalms. Specifically Psalm 113:
“Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, Like a weaned child with his mother; Like a weaned child is my soul within me. Oh Israel, hope in the Lord.”
That’s a powerful simile, isn’t it? A weaned child laying peacefully in its mother’s arms is the perfect picture of peace, comfort, and needs all met. So far, so good. But how do we get there? How do we calm and quiet our soul (The spiritual side of our being) when our schedule or are circumstances have us coming unhinged?
There’s the rub. In the 21st century it’s a tall order. The problem is called The” Information Age”.
Up until the year 2000, mankind had generated roughly 5 exabyte’s of information. Meaning in all of history up to that point.
(An exabyte, by the way, is one quintillion bytes.)
Today is July 5, 2017. Now mankind produces 2.5 exabytes of data. Every Day.
Data distributed through multiple outlets—television news, radio news, cybernews, twitter, facebook, etc. etc. etc.. And with 24/7 media intrusion –and expectations by employers, family and friends of 24/7 accessability–, (and way too many other obligations and expectations on our lives), we have a genuine need to slow down feel free to read this “unplug” more than any generation before us.
Remember it was David—Israel’s king, that wrote the Psalm he recognized, in a world much less complicated than ours, the need to cultivate the wellness of our soul. Now.
The pace of life is only likely to accelerate. As Christ-followers in the year 2017, we, like David, have to train our souls. We have to learn to calm and quiet them. We have to pretty much undo all the years all the years in which we pretty trained them to be hurried and stressed.
Why does our flesh concentrate on all we feel like we have to do? We’re not going to hand Jesus a resume when we meet Him face to face. We’re going to throw it at His feet.
We have to get alone with the Creator. And drink deep of His Word. We have to learn to train our souls to trust Him and rest in His promises. We have to undo the years in which we pretty much trained our souls to be hurried and stressed. A soul empty of the Lord’s comfort and power.
Because a soul empty of his comfort and power is a soul that is a noisy soul, when God would give us a quiet one. Psalm 131
A soul empty of His comfort and power is a spent and exhausted soul, when He would have us refreshed.
In the multitude of my anxieties within me, Your comforts delight my soul. Ps 49:19
My soul melts from heaviness; Strengthen me according to Your word. Psalm 119:28
It’s a noisy soul, when He would have it peaceful. (and listening).
My soul, wait in silence for God alone. Psalm 62:5
Some time back researchers started looking into the effects of amphetamines on mice. Not sure how that connected to treatment for amphetamine addiction but I do know our tax dollars paid for it.
Mice, as it turns out, are pretty sensitive to amphetamines, and they have used mice to figure out what doses are likely to kill humans.
But it turns out that these experiments tell us something else about mice. And men.
When amphetamines are given to one mouse without other mice around, it takes a very high dose to kill the mouse. In solitude, it takes a high dosage to kill it.
Give it to a group of mice, however, they all get way riled up and start hopping around. And they hype each other up so much that a fraction of the original one mouse dosage will be lethal.
And here’s something we need to think about. When a mouse given no amphetamines at all is placed in with the others, that mouse will be dead in ten minutes just because he adopts the frenzy that he assumes, I guess, is normal.
God gives us a different example to follow in I Samuel. Hannah.
14 and said to her, “How long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine.”15 “Not so, my lord,” Hannah replied, “I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord. 16 Do not take your servant for a wicked woman; I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief.”17 Eli answered, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”18 She said, “May your servant find favor in your eyes.” Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast.
A few more helpful verses:
I will be glad and rejoice in Your mercy, For You have considered my trouble; You have known my soul in adversities Psalm 31:7 NKJV
In the multitude of my anxieties within me, Your comforts delight my soul. Ps 49:19
He who gets wisdom loves his own soul; He who keeps understanding will find good. Proverbs 19:8