Worship

“Still in Control” by Jesus Culture featuring Mack Brock

Scripture

“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” -Mark 12:30 (ESV)

Introduction

If you missed the devotional last week, I am co-authoring four devotionals with my dear friend, Alexandria Watkins. Many of you know her because of her personal care for those of you having had COVID-19. She has courageously treated more than 4,000 COVID-19 patients all over the United States since March of 2020. She developed a successful protocol for the treatment of coronavirus early on in 2020. She and I are partnering over these next three weeks to write together from both a medical and a spiritual position to touch on this Scripture in Mark. So today begins our deep dive into what it means to love God with all our soul, which can be categorized as our mind, will, and emotions. Read Alexandria’s contribution below.

Soul Health

As the day came to an end and I was getting ready to finish with my last patient, I entered the room and instantly noticed a healthy, young female patient. When I came through the door, she gave a pleasant smile and I thought, “Perfect, a healthy individual; I can check my assessment boxes off quickly and make it home before 9 o’clock tonight for the first time in weeks.” As I expeditiously flipped through her chart looking for objective data to support my initial impression, I soon found that her outward appearance did not match her innermost infirmities. I slowed down and began to open up a line of communication that would instill trust and confidence. This particular patient had just recently relapsed on opioids (pain killers) and was seeking medical help for symptoms of withdrawing from such a drug. Her social and medical history would put a Stephen King novel to shame. Previously, she had been assessed by a psychologist, psychiatrist, neurologist—ultimately, she saw all the “-ist” groups only to find herself right back in the same position time and time again.

During my early years as a health care provider, the probability of a genuine biological link between soul trauma and poor health outcomes came to me as a question that idled for only a moment before it was gone. Because I was practicing medicine the way I had been trained to practice it, I resided in this not-quite-getting-it state for years. My intuition concerning this soul connection between health and adversity was just an instinct, and as a scientist, I couldn’t acknowledge these kinds of insinuations without some sobering evidence. So, I began to ask myself: What’s the correlation between soul health and physical health?

In health care, our goal is to treat the whole person. To do this, it is imperative that we do not just understand the physical aspects of an individual but that we also understand that a healthy spiritual life requires maintaining, fine-tuning, nourishing, guiding, and guarding the soul. In Greek, the word for “soul” is psyche, from which we get the word psychology. As we go through life, we can experience ups and downs in our health and withstand the cycles of pain and pleasure without ever knowing there is a wounding deep within our soul. The rubber meets the road when these wounds in our soul persist and continue to spread. The soul eventually starts to crumble into fragments like decomposing granite. In medical terms, this type of episode can be diagnosed as a nervous breakdown. (A nervous breakdown can be defined as an acute adjustment reaction and psychosocial dysfunction or an uneasy psychological state.)

Our physical health can deteriorate with neglect, and so can our soul if not properly cared for and maintained. We can feel confident as believers that the Lord wants to transform us and renew our minds so that we live as new creations (Romans 12:2). As a believer and a health care provider, I have seen too many cases where declining soul health has been overlooked either by the patient, provider, or both parties. This unintentional neglect permits the progression of a fragmented soul.

Manifestations of Soul Wounds

There are several physical manifestations of a suffering soul and the physiological processes taking place: acceleration of the aging process and hair loss; impaired memory; gastrointestinal disorders (ulcers, chronic diarrhea or constipation); obesity; leptin sensitivity; impaired immune system; chronic pain, especially back pain (spinal misalignments) and headaches. As you can see, the body physically responds to wounding in our souls.

Wounding of the soul because of misappropriation allows for the disease to spread to affect a person’s will and then advances to the heart, also known as the soul’s spiritual center. Over time this “infection of the soul” becomes established, and the mind, will, and heart compensates, making this disease the new normal. This compensation inhibits the development of achieving meaningful relationships, causing individuals to reach outside of the norm looking for other alternatives to self-medicate their infected or hurting soul. Self-medication is a practice where individuals use any external influence or substance in pursuit of healing their physical or psychological ailments. Self-medicating has a place when an individual is on a quest to heal the soul, but it is important to note that self-medicating for the soul can lead to either biblical or unbiblical practices.

Paths to Healing

Examples of biblical practices:

• Prayer
• Bible reading
• Fasting
• Healthy activity
• Healthy boundaries
• Self-examination (confession)
• Safe relationships
• Communion

Examples of unbiblical practices:

• Excessive drug/alcohol consumption
• Consuming large amounts of junk food for comfort
• Oversleeping or abstaining from sleep
• Retail therapy
• Personal punishments

A provider’s role is to guide individuals through a healing process, encourage, educate, and advocate. I also believe that God has called us up as believers to guide our brothers and sisters through healing processes, encourage, educate, and advocate for one another. This is when the Body of Christ functions so beautifully together. When assessing an individual with a wounded soul, we must make the distinction between a person who has become spiritually alive in Christ and the person who has not. Encouragement and education must ensue to inform the individual who is spiritually alive in Christ that they are not immune to having an infected soul and may need soul repair. Our aim should be as John’s was when he encouraged Gaius in 3 John 1:2, NASB, “Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers.”

The Comfort of God

The glorious truth in this reality of soul wounds is that there is a Lover of our soul who knows us so very intimately! When my aunt was dying of pancreatic cancer, she was lying in the bathtub one evening and had the thought, “If God calls the stars each by name, how much more must He love this soul of mine.” Even in her physical pain and suffering, the love of God broke through and healed feelings of abandonment she was feeling in her pain. Soul wounds can go undetected for so long, and yet the One who sees us doesn’t want to leave us in that place. He wants to pick us up and love us back to life.

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10, ESV).

It really does matter to the Lord that we believe and hold on to His love for us first and foremost. Romans 8:38-39, NLT, says, “And I am convinced … nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord (emphasis added).” Our inner world affects our health; there’s just no away around it. We live out of what we believe, at the very core of our lives. Our experiences inevitably shape our beliefs and our theology, and then you add the affliction of the world and the enemy and it can be hard to gauge the impact of all of it.

“Managing our inner world is central to all matters of faith. Our heart is the seat of affection and the place from which flow the issues that affect our lives. Faith comes from the heart as well, not the mind. Faith is not an idea or concept. It is not a deep doctrine to be believed in. Faith is an inward expression of confidence in God being who He says He is and doing what He says He will do.” -Bill Johnson, “Born for Significance”

Sometimes it’s hard to love because we don’t really know what love really looks like. “We love because He first loved us (1 John 4:19).” I have one daughter who displays this so beautifully in her life. When she is deeply rooted in God’s word—spending time with Him and living from this place of being loved—she extravagantly loves those around her. But when life has been busy, her time is stretched thin, people have caused her to be defensive or she’s feeling devalued, loving others does not come easy for her. She has learned in her 21 years that she can’t live a moment without Jesus. I love her desperate dependence on Him. But this understanding has come from a lot of wounds over her little life span. Jesus is healing and transforming and taking her soul wounds and using them as her greatest places of compassion for people.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4, ESV).

The Journey to Healing

Alexandria gave a comprehensive scope of the effects of deep wounding in one’s soul and the physical manifestations when those things never get dealt with. We can apply the stripes of Jesus, which is sufficient for our healing, or we can self-medicate through a whole slew of options just to ease the pain for a moment. Every lashing Jesus endured was for your healing. It’s His love that kept Him there, bearing every sin and every wound you would be afflicted with. The Lord gives us each other to walk together into inner healing, and it’s hard and raw but it’s worth it. My girlfriend and I are going through a book called “A Guide to Listening and Inner-Healing Prayer” by Rusty Rustenbach. I highly recommend that if anything has sparked an identification of some soul wounds Jesus is longing to heal, ask the Lord for a sister to walk with you to Jesus for healing. Life is hard, and the world is cruel, but I am convinced that the love of Christ is so transformative and victorious and freeing that we should seek to live in it all the days of our lives.

“The more we fellowship with Jesus and learn about His character, experiencing His goodness, grace, and mercy in our lives, the more deeply we recognize His amazing love. Our souls may be so deeply wounded that we need to bask in the love of God for a long, long time to even begin sensing its healing effect. Deep wounds take time to heal, so be patient.” -Joyce Meyer, “Healing the Soul of a Woman”

We don’t have to be bound by the wounds of our soul. Jesus made it possible to be healed and whole. I think the tricky part is when we self-medicate for coping or comfort and push off our utter dependence on Jesus alone. One of my biggest coping mechanisms when the girls were little was shopping. Stress would ensue, and I would find myself in the dressing room, purchasing a cute outfit. I remember one day the Holy Spirit prompted this word on my heart:

If you will put those jeans back, I will provide all you need.

I knew the voice of the One calling me to come up higher out of this pattern. I purchased the jeans. I went home and for 24 hours could not settle my spirit. I knew I was walking in disobedience, and as much as I tried to compromise the idea that “it’s just a pair of jeans,” the Holy Spirit wasn’t budging. The next day I returned them, and I will tell you, the Lord was faithful to His promise to me that day. And He began to break that stronghold as I began to deal with the soul issue at hand!

It’s the passion of Jesus to get us to such a place of surrender and healing that loving Him with a soul that is whole is totally possible. He can heal these soul wounds, and He desires to do that for you. For those of you whom this is speaking to, I want to pray for you. Lord, I bring my sisters who are in need of some soul care and healing to your throne of grace. The enemy has been cruel and the brokenness of the world has taken it’s toll. I pray that you would supernaturally tend to her, heal her, sustain her, and minister to her today. I pray that you would break off patterns of wounding that are coming at her. I pray that you would be her greatest protector and defender. And I pray that for the areas that she is finding coping and comfort apart from you that you would counsel these places with tenderness and wooing. I pray that in 2021 she finds her greatest healing and deliverance in the hands of her loving Savior. Do in her what only you can do, Jesus!

A Few Key Notes

• Registration is now open for the Arise spring luncheon on May 13! To register in person, visit www.eastwest.org/ariseluncheon. The cost per person is $10 to attend in person. To attend the event virtually for free, register online.

Date: May 13

Time: 11:30 a.m.

Location: The Hope Center, 2001 W. Plano Parkway, Plano, TX 75075

• If you’ve ever wondered if God could be speaking through your dreams, join us for a three-part workshop on dream interpretations through a biblical lens led by Kathy Gray, who has studied dream interpretation for 20 years. You can attend in-person or over Zoom. Email me at [email protected] to register.

Dates: May 18, June 1, and June 8

Time: 7 p.m.

Location: The Hope Center, 2001 W. Plano Parkway, Plano, TX 75075

Cost: $50

• Join us August 12-17 in Vancouver, Washington, as we share the love of Jesus with the lost and the broken there. Training will be available. Apply on East-West’s website.