Folks talk all the time about looking after your health. Sometimes they talk about looking after your sanity. As Christians, there is a clear call from Jesus to watch out for our own souls... and yet I find that taking care of your soul comes up far less often in conversation amongst Christians than taking care of your computer. And I think that's mainly because we have no idea what the heck it means to take care of our souls. What is our soul anyway? It seems like a theoretical, head-knowledge concept and we don't have much of a real-world sense of how to apply it to ourselves, our being, our feelings and our senses.
And yet it's one of the most important parts of a Christian life. The call from Jesus to be like the 5 virgins who kept the oil in their lamp burning; his call to watch and pray... do we know what we're watching and praying for? What does it even mean to keep watch, when there's nothing physically to watch for? I think it means to keep watch for the condition of our souls so that we're ready to love HIm when He returns... So here's my take on a few aspects of what it means to look after your soul:
1. Consider your emotions; don't ignore them.
And by "consider", I mean take time to think about them. Understand how you are feeling. Give yourself time and space to feel instead of trying to shove it away so you can get round to doing 'more important' things. This comes naturally to many of us; to many others, it doesn't. I'm talking to the latter group now.
Often in Chinese culture we focus on the mind and the will. Personal feelings are seen as tolerable at best, evil at worst; especially when they appear to disrupt the order or 'peace' of a larger social group. And I think this idea has, unfortunately, found its way into Christian theology. We talk about doing good, and about crucifying the flesh, and often times crucifying the flesh ends up being tantamount to beating yourself with a psychological stick when your feelings make you want to do something that your mind thinks isn't good. "Shove those feelings away and be obedient to God, you weak and faithless Christian..."
But that isn't true. As Christians we should be the most engaged with our emotions, good and bad, because they are God-given and part of our complete salvation/restoration. Emotions aren't evil. God has emotions, Jesus had emotions, and He made us to have emotions. Feeling negative emotions is often the doorway to healing; it's when we feel hurt, upset or angry that God (or significant people in our lives) are able to provide comfort, understanding and love, and ultimately, healing. Ignoring those emotions is often a defensive mechanism to avoid being vulnerable, and in the process we shut off God from a part of our heart.
I'm reminded of something Glen (my pastor in the USA) used to say: It's not good to be angry at God, but if you're angry at Him it's even worse to pretend like you're not. I have discovered from personal and intimate experience with God that He is very capable of dealing calmly with our anger, and He is ever loving and patient to listen to us vent when we need to vent. I once spent about 10-15 mins in a worship session just bawling, tears flowing like a river, because I was angry at Him for letting me go through something hurtful. Those 10-15 minutes were spent venting at Him, and I felt like I was grabbing Him by the shoulders and shaking Him and yelling at Him. And the whole time I felt like He had this calm look on His face, like He was listening patiently and letting me shake Him. I didn't push Him away, I just confronted Him and said, "this sucked, why didn't you prevent this from happening?" because I was already feeling it and it wouldn't have done any good to pretend I wasn't. At the end of it all, I stopped, panting, tired... and I felt like I'd taken my hands off His shoulders and He was still there, patient, calm, even smiling a little at me. And because I went through all of that, my anger at Him left, I knew He loved and accepted me even in the depth of my anger, and I felt He was completely in loving control. I don't know how He did it, but He did.
Does this mean we should spend our time thinking about every thing we feel? No; sometimes it's wise to not focus too much on how you're feeling and to move on. But I think it's always important to at least acknowledge a feeling, and in the long run we should be seeking to understand our feelings more than we try to ignore them. Which leads me to my next point...
2. Understand why you feel the way you feel.
This will most often result in a "I don't know." And that's okay. The important step is to ask the question. Sometimes we avoid doing this because we've grown up in an environment that didn't accept how we feel unless there was a good reason, and so anytime someone questions why we're feeling a certain way, we feel rejected. If that's the case, you first need to tell yourself it's okay to not have a reason.
Why is understanding why you feel how you feel important? It's not so that we can justify our feelings. We live under grace; God accepts us unconditionally, regardless of how bratty or unreasonable we are. So how we feel is perfectly fine with God. Instead, I think the significance of this is in the longer term. I've found that I've made significant steps in my spiritual life and my own healing when I'm able to talk to someone about the things that bother me. I observe how I react, and often I don't understand them, but over time I start to see a pattern, and that pattern may reveal certain bitterness that I may have towards someone, or particular hurts that need healing, or particular lies in my past that I need to realise have shaped my world but are not true. Most importantly, it's how I learn to relate to God better; I've found that the more I understand myself, the more I understand how God made me, and the more I see that I really do make sense; that there is a sense of order and reason about even the seemingly irrational parts of me, and that speaks to me of how I've been lovingly and painstakingly crafted by the Loving Almighty Himself.
Why this is important to looking after your soul? Because understanding how you feel will tell you what are the areas you need to be loved in. On the flip side, if you don't seek to understand this, you will keep finding solutions that don't work because they don't actually address why you're doing what you're doing. E.g. Guys who fall into the addition of pornography often do so because they lack emotional affirmation and love; i.e. they feel unvalued. If you don't understand that, an easy solution will be to scold yourself and tell yourself you're a terrible person for looking at all these things... but that just accentuates the problem and makes things worse because feeling unvalued was how you began looking at it in the first place. On the other hand, if you understand that it's because you need affirmation, then you begin to see the point of finding someone to confess it too and talk about it with; someone who will affirm you and say it's okay, God doesn't judge you and neither do I, let's work through this together.
3. Seek out the oil (Mat 25:1-13)
Ok. Figurative speech. What exactly is the oil? Some say it's the Holy Spirit... but even then, sounds kind of figurative to me. What does it mean?
I think it's simply this: Our primary job as Christians is never to keep the fire burning (to make ourselves feel passionate; to "stir up" emotion; to keep serving; to try harder... although there may be times for each of those). Our job is to find what keeps our hearts alive (His love, His spirit) and to feed on it. Seek the oil and the flame will naturally burn (I think that's the miraculous gift of life! A dead person will do nothing no matter how much you love him). In other words, learn to receive, and learn to place yourself in places where you receive Godly things. Sometimes we tend to think that we need to force ourselves to obey, when we're really just running dry and need a little love. Seek out His love; come into your prayer time seeking to believe He wholly loves and accepts you before you begin to ask for anything (it's futile to ask God for something if you don't first believe He already knows and cares about what you want/need); find rest in Him (Heb 4). Find people who love you; give them opportunities to love you; spend time with God and focus on His love at all times.
Is being obedient and staying faithful as a Christian important? Sure. But it's not the most important thing. This race has never been about what we can do for Him anyway; it's always been about Him and what He does. We sometimes have a hard time accepting that in Singapore, because our entire culture is based on works-based acceptance; I am a good citizen if I am productive, stay late, earn enough for the family, provide for my kids, coach them through school etc. If I don't, I get scolded, or at best someone will tell me I got my just desserts for not trying hard enough. The Christian version goes something like this: I am a good Christian if I read my bible every day, spend X minutes praying everyday, treat people nicely, share the gospel with someone once in a while and serve regularly in a ministry. Oh and don't forget regular bible study and church attendance. If I don't at least try, then I can't expect God to love me and bless me.
Aside from the fact that that just isn't the heart of God, what this mentality fails to realise is that every action of giving (burning the flame) consumes motivation (oil), and we can and do run out of motivation when we give all the time and don't spend any time receiving. In seeking to earn His acceptance which has already been given free, oftentimes we are just depleting ourselves and our relationship with God.
In serving an abundant God as His little ones, shouldn't it be that we receive from Him so much more than we give? That, after all, is how every healthy little child is raised. This has never been about what we do for Him, and we need to stop defining our Christian lives around that. The hallmark of a faithful one isn't how much he has done for God, for there will be those in the end times who say Lord, I've done all these things for you, and Jesus will say "I didn't know you". Instead, we are like little children, often eager to do things to please the Father (which is great!) and constantly in need of His love and acceptance. I think the simple act of coming back to God, in full confidence that He loves (and likes!) us, and asking for some love and encouragement from Him brings Him so much joy, just like it would any earthly father to have his son or daughter come to him and say, "Daddy could I have a hug?"
This is why I think it's important to consider and understand our emotions; because if we don't even realise we feel upset, how can we tell when we're running dry and need His love? Of course He knows us better than we know ourselves, and I absolutely believe that it's fine if we don't see everything, because He sees what we need and He knows how to convince us. My concern is just that we will reject it even if He told us that was what we needed to focus on, thinking instead that it was Satan trying to tempt us.
We're like a motor car; fill up its tank, step on the gas and it goes happily (whee!). If the tank is low, it sputters... and then only an idiot would say the car is lousy and yell at it to try harder. That would be silly - the natural solution is to take the car to the gas station and fill 'er up (hopefully we don't have to push!). Our job as Christians to watch and pray, to keep our lamps alive, isn't one of trying harder to do things; it's figuring out where the gas stations that feed us His oil (His unconditional and extravagant love and acceptance) are, visiting them regularly and making sure we stay filled.
Seek His love and our lamps will naturally burn bright with us barely even trying. It's that simple.
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1 comment:
Amen! Preach it, brother.
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