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God wants to give you rest, restore and refresh you. Man is a spirit, has a soul and lives in a body. It is the tripartite arrangement that we find in scripture and theology: God the father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit; and the outer court, inner court and holy of holies. In the physical world, we have water, vapour and ice.
The soul is the part of you that thinks and chooses; it is your mind. The soul is your will and emotions. Basically, the person you are depends on how you think, feel, the choices you make and how you use your mind. The scripture says, “He restores my soul”.
This means that your soul can be damaged by bad experiences, trauma and emotional depletion or being overemotional.
The soul can be damaged one, by unaddressed grudges. This is when you get resentful, bitter and vengeful against people who hurt you. The fact is, since we have all sorts of people in this world; the wicked, demons and the devil, in life you are going to be hurt. They will plot and skim against your downfall. Actually, it seems like the people who are innocent and good end up suffering the most; while the wicked tend to be having a good time.
This is not about you being hurt, because you will be hurt; it is how you respond when you are hurt. If you are not careful your soul will be hurt, beaten down and trampled by people. How do you respond when people are unfair or hurtful to you? “For wrath kills a foolish man and envy slays a simple one.” (Job 5:2).
Two, is unconfessed guilt. Grudges and guilt are the two biggest issues that work up your soul. What people have done to you can cause grudges but what you have done to others will cause guilt. God hates it when people walk in guilt because he has already taken care of all of their guilt and sins.
“For my inequities have gone over my head; like a heavy burden they are too heavy for me. My wounds are foul and festering because of my loneliness. I am troubled, bowed down greatly and go mourning all the day long” (Psalms 38:4-6).
Your soul is so precious to God and you need to watch out for grudges and guilt because they will overwhelm you. The soul is the part that thinks and loves while the soul is your emotions. No wonder people whose souls have been damaged wonder why they cannot love. You need the Good Shepherd to restore and heal your soul because God has given you a conscience.
“The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the inner depths of his heart” (Proverbs 20:27).
Three, is unprocessed grief. In life, you will go through losses and there can be no loss without pain and no pain without grief.
There is no loss that you will ever experience, whether it is the loss of a loved one or a job or a relationship that does not bring with it pain and grief. Unprocessed grief will cause distress, tears and your body to wither away.
Medical doctors say that we are psychosomatic and the body and the soul correlate and walk together hand in hand. If your soul is down, your body will eventually reveal that you are down.
No wonder God takes time in scriptures and says that he is the Good Shepherd that comes to restore our soul. How does the Good Shepherd come in to restore our soul? God turns everything to work together for our good. “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them” (Romans 8:28).
He will restore you again because he cannot restore that which has not been destroyed or broken or shattered.
He is a Good Shepherd who wants you to experience the goodness - he gives you a pick-up all the time. He restores your soul so that you can think straight, have vision, move on and make the decisions that you are supposed to make in keeping with the will of God.
God will take away your guilt. Joseph said to his brothers, “But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it this day, to save many people alive” (Genesis 50:20). People will plot evil against you but God will turn it all around. God heals you by taking away your guilt.
God understands your situation - grief and pain. He too has been there and felt it. Therefore, even grief is not meant to break your soul.
“He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him; he was despised and we did not esteem him.
Surely, he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted” (Isaiah 53:3-4).
Bishop David Muriithi
Founder & Overseer
House of Grace International Ministries
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