New Year Resolution

Celebrating the New Year is not for me. The normal traditions are not my cup of tea and the short lived superficial fixes on life are the same year after year. I don’t understand why identical changes are desired with new expectations over and over again. Each year, they are very likely to be temporary with little to no effect.

After the fireworks and celebration,
commit to a different kind of resolution.

There is one change I encourage you to commit to in the coming New Year. A resolution promising lasting results for the coming year and all those following. This year, I encourage you to nurture your soul. Feed it. Protect it. Exercise it.

Although our soul is not a body part studied in anatomy class, it is very real and we all have one. When it is hurt, it cannot be seen with x-rays or scans. There is no medicine to digest to help it heal. When it is hungry, we cannot satisfy it with food for our body. It can’t be touched by human hand nor will any secular patch repair a hole in our soul. All of these things make it difficult for some to believe they, or any of us, have a soul.

The Bible tells us we do indeed have a Spirit inside us - a soul that will live forever. Ecclesiastes 12:7 tells us our bodies will return as dust to the earth as it was when God created man. But our souls! Our souls can return to God who gave us life. How we live our life will determine the outcome of our soul’s eternity. So why brush off what will last even after our bodies die?

It is easy to do. We cannot see our soul when we look in the mirror. Feeding the soul is not easy. It does not make many schedules because the world does not highlight the importance of a nurtured soul. Making it even easier to backburner, that which feeds the soul is also invisible. The Holy Spirit does not have an audible voice, reading the Bible requires intentionality that often times turns into confusion and prayer is a communication outlet to our Heavenly Father with silent responses. His responses are there, but we have to learn to listen for what is not audible making it easy to feel as though we get nothing from it all.

I used to think because I loved God and asked Jesus into my heart, things would automatically start changing. But nothing happened beyond the great feeling of love, acceptance and belonging. My circumstances and relationships did not change. It was as if my God was busted or something. Truth is, I did not know how to nurture my soul. I was not feeding, protecting or exercising what I had accepted into my life.   

The process of jumping over the hurdle of the world to experience more from God took me years to learn and many more will be needed to achieve master status. (If that is even a thing). Not because of who God is, but because I am learning to navigate through two opposing sides: what I think to be right verses what God wants me to accept as right. Learning how the roles of intentionality, compliance and application all come together to work toward my nurtured soul has been life changing and helped me with this battle.

Intentionality of spending time with God is often times misleading to seem unattainable or unrealistic in a person’s daily routine. Some people seem to have achieved master status and block out an entire hour to spend with God. Even more, they wake up like an hour before the sun to do so. Understand being intentional, like any new habit begins small and over time, it grows. It will be necessary to feed your soul. For example, in the morning before looking at your texts, emails or social media, turn to an app with daily scripture. You are already on your device so there is no big change to be made.

What you choose to look at is where the intentional change comes in. What are you looking at, reading or watching to fill the first thoughts of your day, when you have a break, when you are alone in your car or when you lay your head down at night? Introducing scripture into your life when no one can see will be greatly blessed and multiplied.

Compliance is yielding or submitting to what you are reading and learning so you conform and act in accordance with God’s Word. In doing so, you become more and more similar to Him. Young children often times will do everything they can to be just like dad. They try to find clothes of their own, or perhaps put on dad’s to look like him. To make sure dad sees, they will go to him and mimic his every move. They will copy facial expressions, movements and speech because they want to be like their father. They think very highly of him because of what they know of him and because he loves them well.

We should comply with God in the same way to protect our soul. Things learned because of our intentionality would include what you acquire from worship and sermons experienced at church, alone time with God reading His Word and paying attention to the ever so quiet, but present nudges from the Holy Spirit. The more you know, the more you are able to imitate Him. We are the greatest threat to our souls because we are the ones that feed it. Complying with God will protect us from ourselves.

Application is putting it all into practice. By exercising your soul, you are applying what you are learning. Applying a mimic of Christ to your daily situations, circumstances and relationships. It is not acting how you are used to reacting, rather carrying on with a demeanor mirroring Christ no matter what comes your way. Not holding on to your emotion, but imitating the nature of God’s emotion. This is probably the most difficult role to incorporate into your life. Just like exercise is hard work for the body, the soul will reap great reward and results beyond your wildest thoughts because you are allowing God to work in your life. Without application, intentionality and compliance is all for nothing.

Ultimately, you are allowing the Spirit of God speak the truths of the Lord into your soul and yield to His authority because you learn it is better than yours. Begin to listen to your spirit that is fed by the Holy Spirit. Allow your soul to guide your heart and mind through the hardest of situations and most unhealthy relationships. Give God permission to change and mold you.  

So, how do you connect your soul with the Holy Spirit? Even harder, how do you connect your Holy Spirit fed soul with your mind and actions? Your heart will almost naturally follow your soul; however, our minds are more cautious and slow to comply with application. It will play hard to get because it knows better.

There is a familiar saying by the French physician, Anthelme Brillat-Savarin. What he said in 1826 is true to the body and the spirit. “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” Over the years, the saying has adapted to “you are what you eat.”

When your soul is spiritually fed by the Word of God, exercised by your willingness and nurtured by the Holy Spirit, it becomes who you are. Your words are more kind. Your disposition carries grace around more readily and accessible. Your inclinations and tendencies are more reflective of Jesus. I’m not exactly sure how God does it. I have prayed God would take anger out of my heart and over time, I cannot find the anger that once harvested in me to drive my actions, words and thoughts. God really does do the hardest work for us. We may not always able to explain or define it. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It means His ways are beyond what our mind can comprehend. Believe me. This is a very good thing. The way God has collated things in my life is beyond astonishing. The more I wait for Him, respond to Him and learn about Him, the more breathtaking the process becomes.

You have to find what works for you and go with it. I have learned the more Bible studies I complete focused on teaching the Word of God, I better understand and am able to read the Bible and achieve understanding on my own. But sitting down and reading the Bible is not always possible in my days or in situations I struggle to find peace and discernment. So I quite often listen to worship music. I listen to it in the car, when I work out, when I get ready, when I clean – all the time! Not every song speaks to my soul, but it does keep my mind focused more on God to help me be more of the woman God has designed me to be. Some songs have a way of getting straight into my soul each time I hear them.

Horatio Spafford’s words speak directly to my spirit with the song “It is Well with My Soul.” I used to think something was wrong with my faith and worship to the Lord because my hands do not raise when I worship in public or private settings. My eyes close. So that my soul can concentrate, I close my eyes to shut out distraction and let the music and words feed my spirit. When this particular song comes on when I am driving, it is kind of a bad combination because I really have a hard time listening to this song with open eyes. My soul hungers for good worship music. Each time one embraces my soul, my eyes close and my body sways because I am in the presence of God. No matter my surroundings or location, God meets my intentionality and willingness to let Him in.

This year, find what speaks to your soul. Embrace it, fall into it. Let God take you away from pain, stress and anxiety and allow your soul to fall into the arms of God. He is a better remedy than anything of this world. His perfect love will make you better, your situations less traumatic and your surroundings more enjoyable.

Think of prayer as a conversation between you and the closest person in your life. Someone you can tell anything and everything. Talk to God as if you were talking to that person. It does not have to be words from scripture or those eloquently spoken of a pastor. God wants you to speak to Him. Just the way you are: your words, your thoughts, your desires and emotion. He wants it all. He wants you. Just the way you are. You do not have to change for Him before you let Him change you. Start with prayer. Ask Him for a desire to be intentional, a heart of compliance and a will for application.

God please meet each reader right where they are with what they have to offer. Multiply their efforts and bless their soul for the attempt to mimic you more and more each day. Guide their path to protect them from evil as they turn more toward good. May they feel your love, acceptance and reassurance of hope. Thank you Father for your Son Jesus. It is in Jesus redeeming name I pray. Amen.

Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. –Romans 8:5-6