A few weeks ago a dear friend made a passing comment that their soul was empty. It was one short sentence in a big long conversation & yet it was this comment that I thought about all the way home that night. I resolved that I would try to encourage this person with a series of text messages that I titled “finding your soul”. Well we very quickly reached the limits that SMS’ing would allow & I thought that when I finally got back into blog world, I would visit these thoughts & maybe expand a little on them. So here goes….

We can all identify with having an empty soul. Life goes along the way it does & there are times when we each feel as if we are at the bottom of a deep pit, & we know how deep the pit is coz just the other day we were flying along with not a care in the world. The first thing that I thought was important in finding ones soul was to do what a friend once told me & that is “make sure you guard your heart”.

We are each a by product of everything that we allow to influence us. The question for every soul searcher to ask themselves is “who or what is speaking into your life?” What are we allowing to shape our thoughts, our attitudes, our will, our desires? The question really needs to be asked & answered with some intent. I mean, we can all roll along & then suddenly one day wake up with an attitude that is close to internal self destruct, & many people can’t even begin to figure why they are feeling/reacting to life the way that they are. Let’s look at it this way. If you are sick, you will do what you need to do to eliminate whatever it is that is ailing you. If something is bringing down your health, you can often do your daily thing, you can sometimes even go on for years & your effective capacity just gets more & more reduced. Often, we will look to our diet, i.e. what are we putting into our bodies, & change how & what we are eating in order to assist our recovery.

So it is with the soul; if things are not going so well, we need to examine, who or what are the things around me that are influencing me. Are there people around me whose influence I need to curb? Maybe they are leeching the goodwill out of me? Maybe they are constantly giving me bad advice? Maybe I come away from them feeling frustrated? Are there habits that I allowed to creep into my life that are in effect “soul destroying”? It maybe something simple as “I’m watching way too much T.V. or doing too much internet”. Maybe it’s that I cut myself off from other people too much & my solitude is turning into loneliness. Maybe I’ve been allowing myself to worry too much about stuff.

We can each make choices about what we allow to influence us. The first step is to identify & get rid of the stuff that is causing us harm. The next step is to begin to build into the void, practises that are healthy & soul building. For me, one of my greatest allies in the soul stakes is to simply read either a chapter of the Psalms or a chapter from Proverbs every day. It gives me a moment of pause where I can allow myself to acknowledge God’s place in my life. This building block is my greatest advantage & when I don’t do it, it’s like I’ve been eating junk food;

That’ll do for now. I encourage you to share your own struggles, insights, successes in this area.

MM

This entry was posted on Friday, August 31st, 2007 at 10:10 pm and is filed under uncategorised. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.