Soul partnership with God

THE CRIES OF THE SOUL - In spiritual transformation, it is necessary to take the soul seriously and deal with it regularly and intelligently, to be mindful of it. Yet you hear little about the soul in Christian groups, and you see few people seriously concerned about the state of their own soul. 

Some people talk about saving the soul, but once the soul is “safe,” it is usually treated as needing no further attention. Ignoring the soul is one reason Christian churches have become fertile sources of recruits for cults and other religious and political groups. 

We may dimly discern our own soul’s condition and that of others, but we rarely can articulate those conditions and comprehend them at a level required for reflection and discussion. This is not compatible with the serious undertaking of spiritual formation. 

We as individuals must “own” our souls and take responsibility before God for them, turning to our pastors and teachers for the necessary help. Once we clearly acknowledge the soul, we can learn to hear its cries. Jesus heard its cries from the wearied humanity he saw around him. The multitudes around him tore his heart, for they were “distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). He invited such people to come and become his students (“learn of me,” Matthew 11:29, KJV) by yoking themselves to him—that is, letting him show them how he would pull their load. He is not above this, as earthly “great ones” are, for he is “meek and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29, KJV). His own greatness of soul made meekness and lowliness the natural way for him to be (see Philippians 2:3-11). 

Being in his yoke is not a matter of taking on additional labor to crush us all the more, but a matter of learning how to use his strength and ours together to bear our load and his. We will find his yoke an easy one and his burden a light one because, in learning from him, we have found rest for our soul. Rest for our soul is rest in God. Our soul is at peace only when it is with God, as a child with its mother.