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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Soul (07/13/06)
I understand the importance of exercising and eating right, in order to have a healthy body. The importance of this is shouted at me from all directions. I can’t help but see a commercial for a piece of exercise equipment on television or an ad for a diet program on the internet.

Less stressed in our culture is the importance of a healthy soul. It has taken me a long time to really understand this. I once thought that having a healthy soul meant having personal happiness. I thought that being nice and avoiding disagreements meant that I was loving. I thought that all of my wild experiences and rebellion gave me character and made my life exciting. I thought that I didn’t need God, and that the religion that I was taught in my childhood was nothing more than a nice tradition that ran in my family.

I have found that nothing in this world truly belongs to me. I have realized that rather than having true love for others, all I have is apathy and selfishness, and a great fear of being rejected for standing up for the truth. As if this isn’t bad enough, I now understand that my so-called exciting life was doing nothing but opening a great path of death and destruction, daily tearing away at my soul and grieving the Holy Spirit of God.

Sometimes I lie awake in the middle of the night, reflecting on all of this in moments of solitude. The greatness of all the lies I so easily believed and the permanence of my actions makes me feel that all is hopeless. My comfort comes in knowing that God, the keeper of my soul, is greater than all of this, and that his great mercy, which I don’t fully understand, has brought me to the truth.

Are you standing at a dangerous intersection? I never realized that I was, I just wandered down the wrong road, thinking that I was having a great time. Once that road is taken, going back is not easy. In a way, it is like exercising and eating right. It’s much easier to become less healthy than more healthy. It takes a daily commitment to walk in the right direction. Attaining and keeping a healthy soul is not possible for me on my own efforts. It’s only possible for God.
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Member Comments
Member
Date
Jan Ackerson
07/20/06
Good devotional--would you consider bringing it even closer to your readers by telling us about the "death and destruction" that you had in your previous life?
Virginia Gorg
07/21/06
Well written and a good testimony. I, too, would like to hear more about your path and how you found God. :)
Mishael Witty
07/22/06
Thank you for sharing this. How sad that more people don't hear about the importance of keeping the soul healthy. God has helped you learn a great lesson, and it is wonderful that you are willing to share that lesson with others.