How do you pay attention to your soul?

August 16, 2024

Maria Joshua 23, Loving God, Psalm 131, Soul Care, Soul growth , , , , , , 1 Comment

….Take good care in your souls to be in awe of LORD JEHOVAH your God !Joshua 23:11 Aramaic Bible in Plain English

As a counselor and translator for Hispanic women at Huntsville’s pregnancy resource center, I stood in the small room where a young mom from Guatemala and the father of her baby were viewing on a screen their unborn child for the first time.  The Mom was about 17 weeks along in her pregnancy.  The couple had a little girl with them, a three-year-old named Diana.

I always think of a child of three as the weaned child described in the Psalm who has quieted himself.  You know, that little one who doesn’t want anything from Mom but to be as close to her as possible.

But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content. Psalm 131:2 NIV

This little girl was anything but calm.  She positively shrieked from time to time. Her rigid stance while steadily projecting a piercing, prolonged cry seemed not to disturb her parents. It unsettled me for sure, as well as Olivia the nurse scanning the mom.

I surmised that maybe in these early years of her life, ‘Mom’ had not safely provided for little Diana in a calm way. It’s hard to learn how to calm your soul if you haven’t ever felt loved and secure.

I sat down next to her and rubbed her back, trying to reassure her.  Next, I prayed in English over her, talking to Jesus. ‘Dad’ was sitting on a stool next to where the little girl’s mom lay.  I found it hard to get an answer to my questions in Spanish. “Did she not sleep last night?  Is she hungry?”  He smiled, but remained disengaged. Their only ‘tool’ was to hand over one of their iPhones to distract her.  It played nothing but raucous K-Pop at too-high-a-decibel level.

I’d shriek too, if I was fed that noise.

Before Joshua died, he pointed to God’s goodness in making good on all his promises to the Hebrews. Then he warned the 12 tribes to prioritize loving God above all else. How were they to do that?

By paying attention or guarding their souls with all their vehemence or strength.  Almost violently, so the Hebrew wording goes, feeling almost over the top.  Some translations choose ‘diligently’ to translate ‘good heed’ or mehode in Hebrew. But that sounds polite, even respectful.  In reality the Hebrew describes an effort that is: forceful, with intensity, with all measure of strength, using one’s utmost capacity. Think Olympic athletes.

We’re talking about loving God.  Why would that much effort be required?  Because our souls are wanderers, looking for something new, better or different. And if you’ve read much in the Old Testament, you can understand why God through Moses and Joshua kept repeating the same admonitions. 

I’m no different.  My passions sometimes overtake my interest in God. I tend to ‘geek out’ learning about alternative health remedies and acquiring languages.

Not bad pursuits in themselves, but they compete for my attention. They shift it away from eternal matters, like tending my soul and kindling more love for God.

I’m taking to heart this morning’s warning in Joshua.  I DO know what peace and comfort and contentment feel like.  More information or more progress in languages and health won’t provide ultimate things.  But God’s word and the life-pictures he provides encourage me to keep going back to ‘the one thing’ that is important. That I love the Lord, my God with all my heart and soul.  In his strength!

What are you afraid of?

March 29, 2018

Maria Disordered loves, Fear, Fear of the Lord, Joshua 23, Proverbs 19 , , , , , 2 Comments

You’ve probably heard about ‘disordered loves’.  That’s when you love something more than God.

If I’m honest, I struggle with THAT sin not only every day but also multiple times in a day.

What do I love more than God?  Theologically, nothing!  But functionally, I can rattle off probably 10, without pause:

  • my time
  • my comfort
  • my routine
  • speaking French
  • my ability to cook well
  • my appearance (being fit for my age)
  • READING
  • writing
  • sleep
  • long stretches with no obligations

And I haven’t even mentioned people I love!

Yes, I am aware that the Holy Spirit constantly is at work in this entire area of my life.  It’s called pruning, or sanctification, or suffering.

But the other day, something caused me to think about ‘disordered fears’.  I haven’t spotted that expression before, but books have been written about the disproportionate fear of man over the fear of God.  Or how we can become immobilized through fear of failure.

There are a hundred things to fear. And Christians and unbelievers alike battle fear.  Winston Churchill understood the evil of fear during wartime.

Here’s what prompted me to think about how our fears might be out of whack.

First I saw God’s emphasis on loving HIM above everything else.  This lesson has recently been reinforced as Mike and I journey once again through the Bible in a year. Today we finished the book of Joshua.  This successor to Moses is about to ‘be gathered to his fathers’ and he passes on his final advice and admonitions to the congregation of Israel at Shiloh.  He spends a good deal of time recounting God’s faithfulness to the Hebrew tribes, beginning with Abraham and mentioning this fact:

“Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the LORD your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed.” Joshua 23:14 (NIV)

BASED on what God has done for them, Joshua explains their responsibility to LOVE God.  It’s a command.  If it’s a command, it must not be a feeling.  Because ephemeral feelings come and go.  Loving God turns out to be an action that looks like this:

  • serving God wholeheartedly
  • clinging to God
  • preferring the one true God to other Gods
  • obeying God
  • worshipping and sacrificing to this God only

But how did I connect this directive to love God to what we are to fear?  Well, you can’t read much of the Old Testament without picking up the importance of ‘fearing God’.  Proverbs 19:23 is just one of many verses: “The fear of the LORD leads to life, so that one may sleep satisfied, untouched by evil.”

Earlier in the week, I was wallowing in some non-God fears.   Kind of like Pilgrim mucking around in the Slough of Despond.  But thanks be to the Holy Spirit!  He brought me up short about the sin of fear.

I saw that these temporal fears (I’m gaining weight, some work-related circumstances might never get better, what if………….happens?) were occupying my thoughts and causing me to be despondent.  That was a slap in the face to God.  God brought me up short about my unbelief in God’s good (*good as HE calls good, that is whatever facilitates my eventual conformity to Jesus) plan for my life.  That realization led me to confess that I was fearing FIRST and FOREMOST something other than God.

I now see that if I shift my thoughts and energy to fearing, to pleasing, to caring about God’s reputation, then maybe my other fears will fall ‘into’ place and to their correct size. God doesn’t want us to deny our fear; He invites honesty.  BUT He is at work to place them in perspective.  Loving God leads to life.  Fearing God leads to life.  Loving AND fearing something over God leads to death.

It’s a new thought for me.  What about you?  Do you struggle more with disordered loves or disordered fears?  OR…..are they one and the same, two sides of the same sin?