Tag Archives: Paul’s dilemma

My soul, wait in silence for God only

 

 

My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him. Psalm 62:5

 

We are created with spirit, soul, and body and these three entities are constantly communicating with or ignoring the other.

 

Our spirit is created to align with God’s spirit in us. When we ask Jesus to be our Lord and Savior He gives us a new and pure spirit. Think of your noisy and often rebellious soul (our mind, will, emotions, and memory) as how we relate to others and our circumstances. The soul isn’t changed right away. It requires (often years of) training to listen to and obey the spirit. Our body, the temple of God, is commanded by our soul. It is the order of things as they were created.

 

With this framework, we understand Paul’s dilemma in Romans 7 where he says that he does the things he doesn’t want to do and doesn’t do the things he does want to do. Our spirit, our soul and our body battle with one another and nearly every day, one of them loses the battle. The soul becomes ‘prisoner’ to the body or the other way around. Only when God’s spirit breaks into that prison, do we find real freedom to live in peace.

 

Our soul often bemoans the past, whines about the present, and worries over the future. It complains incessantly even about its own struggles to surrender to God, seeking its own way instead.

 

The author of Ecclesiastes reminds us there is a season for all things, including “a time to be silent and a time to speak.” (Ecclesiastes 3:1,7) The victorious life requires us to tell our noisy soul to be quiet and wait in silence only for God, for HE is our hope.

 

Is our soul ever controlled? I think we are better to think in terms of surrendering every part of our soul to God: our will, our thoughts, our emotions, our attitudes, our very heart. When we surrender all the soul to the spirit of God our soul is quieted and silenced before Him and then we can hear Him speak peace and joy and hope to us. It is then that all is well with our soul.

 

Too often I forget to keep attending to the spiritual nature of the battle around and within me. I wonder how many of our bodily woes are actually battle wounds from these struggles? This process of sanctification is a life-long series of struggles, bearing numerous scars. But the battle decreases when we live according to the proper role of submission: the Holy Spirit commands our spirit. Our spirit commands our soul. Our soul commands our body, bringing us into proper alignment with God’s good and perfect will.

 

Is it well with your soul today? Shut out the noise of the world and also the noise of your inner being. Be still. In silence let God speak hope, joy, and peace to your soul.