Soul Design!

May 6, 2021

Soul Design!

Your soul is designed to thrive in an environment of love; a love that is authentic, real, and generous! 

Our soul requires a love that is more than a romantic feeling.  Our soul needs a love that is more than a warm feeling.  Our soul longs for a love that is more than a comfortable feeling. 

Our soul desires a love that is only fully understood in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.  This Christ-like love is much, much more than an emotional feeling.  The love Jesus shows us is practical and concrete as well as transformative and heart-expanding.

In I Corinthians 13:7 the Apostle Paul writes; “Love bears all thing, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”  This is the kind of love for which our soul is designed. 

Love protects the vulnerable among us; love bears all things! 

Love looks for the best in others; love believes all things! 

Love takes us on a journey to where Jesus wants us to be; love hopes all things!

Love demands both accountability and grace; love endures all things!

Our soul is designed with an almost unquenchable thirst for the Lord who is authentic, real, and generous love.  In Psalm 63:1-3 we hear; “O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.  So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.  Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.”

The deepest thirst of our soul can only be quenched by the love of Jesus.  The Psalmist acknowledges that “…your (the Lord’s!) steadfast love is better than life.”  The Psalmist knows that our soul is designed with a thirst for the unwavering and unbelievable love of the Lord God.

Our soul is looking for the personification of our Heavenly Father’s love.  The personification of the Father’s love is seen and experienced in Jesus.  In I John 4:9 we hear; “God’s love was revealed among us in this way:  God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.”  We know the authentic, real, and generous love of God in Jesus the Son.

An old African American spiritual affirms that the love for which our soul thirsts is found in Jesus.  The refrain and first verse of “There Is A Balm In Gilead” reads;

“There is a balm in Gilead
to make the wounded whole.
There is a balm in Gilead
to heal the sin-sick soul.”

Sometimes I feel discouraged,
and think my work’s in vain,
but then the Holy Spirit
revives my soul again.”

(“There Is A Balm In Gilead” in The United Methodist Hymnal, p. 375; African American Spiritual)

An early revision of the spiritual modifies the refrain so that it closely reflects the text in I John 4:9.  The revised refrain reads;

“There’s balm in Gilead;
To make the wounded whole,
There’s power enough in Jesus,
To cure the sin-sick soul.”

                (“There Is a Balm In Gilead” In The Chorus: Or A Collection Of Choruses And Hymns, 7th ed., Philadelphia, 1858)

“There’s power enough in Jesus, to cure the sin-sick soul.” These words remind us that our soul is designed with a thirst for the love of God we know in Jesus.  It is the way our Creator created our soul. 

When we invite the love of Jesus to fill our hearts, our soul will overflow with delight in the Lord God.  We will sing with the Psalmist; “…my lips will praise you.”  (Psalm 63:3)

Take delight in the Lord!

Doug