Starlessness
Emptiness is the enemy.
Even more than the Enemy…it is the enemy.
But you, dear reader, were not created for emptiness…God just isn’t into it. He really, really likes Somethingness. “He made the world to be lived in, not to be a place of empty chaos,” (Isaiah 45:18). And as careful as He is populating the Outward Earth…He’s even more interested in what inhabits your Inner World.
We all start off like our poor wounded world. Before the Holy Spirit came to flutter over the face of my deeps…He surveyed the emptiness and void of the World Within me. And here my Inward Genesis began…when He sang—“Let there be Light.” This…at the age of 10 at Vacation Bible School…was my first day…and a new world sprang into being inside.
Unfortunately, I’ve practiced poor ecology since then. Soul has an ecosystem…and I ruined mine….
The Soul—a lonely, secluded vale…where streams flow in from higher climbs…and from every quarter of the dell resounds the chorus of living things…made happy and strong from the pristine waters coursing through their midst.
You’ve heard your Soul resound with birdsong, haven’t you? And winged things take flight above your Heart? Here is where “life and that more abundantly” is sourced…in fact, it appears that the World Within will long outlast the World Without…the earth…the sun…the moon and all the stars….
Then again it seems Souls are slated to be stars….
Now imagine a pollutant entering those crystalline waters…maybe slowly at first…but then in ever increasing draughts…bringing poison to the Soul’s verdant valley. The inhabitants closest to the tainted current will be the first to fall…fluttering Joy…prancing Purposefulness…robust Forgiveness….But eventually the killing pall will creep outward…green gone gray…as other creatures such as Delight…Belief…and Innocence skulk deeper into the Soulscape… blindly burrowing in for a place to end their agony and die…and bringing their sickness with them. Eventually, even the stalwart woods of Identity droop and grow septic.
Heart doesn’t have Soul’s interest at heart. Whereas Soul longs for intimacy, the Heart craves satisfaction. My Heart hungers like a “nic-fit,” and I fill my Soul with smoke. Many have been my spiritual cigarettes…where the sensation of fulfillment first feels fun…then fleeting…then forlorn…and finally fatal. I’ve killed my Soul in Oh!-so-many-ways…and hurt many I love.
The Heart is hijacker.
Sometimes Heart (Will) and Mind clasp hands and follow their own folly… dragging Soul along behind. It is in conflicted times as this…that Soul will become disturbed within you…and will send you warning signals of Her torment…in dreams…mysterious maladies…nervous outbreaks. Often “following your Heart” is the worst thing for your Soul…for Heart is crafty…and powerful…and—for lack of a better word—sticky. It will adhere to anything that promises to satiate its hungers. And yet—
…hunger is Holy.
A friend dreamed of a bedraggled bird…famished and weatherworn…fallen to bricks in a blur before him. But at death’s door…the diminutive creature began to peck and partake of the seed and waters strewn at my friend’s feet. And startlingly…the impoverished turned imperial…and the repulsive became resplendent. And upon waking…my friend knew with all power and clarity that a Soul’s cries can declare—that he was the bird. And the feet he witnessed were not his own…but of Him whom no finch or sparrow goes unnoticed.
If your Soul is an ecological disaster…from whatever poison or pollution that’s been spilled…abide and imbibe of Him. He made you to be hungry. And He made Himself to be food. Your toxicity does not put him off…rather He is the counteractive. Follow Him…not your Heart.
Empathy not emptiness…that is what He has for you. Maybe you can turn some of that empathy inward right now and quietly speak grace-seasoned words to your Soul. She will hear. She responds to intimacy. She was designed to.
Even in the emptiness of space…a Soul can turn Star.
Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father.
Matthew 13:43
But let those who love Him be like the sun when it comes out in full strength.
Judges 5:31a
But the path of the just is like the shining sun, that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.
Proverbs 4:18
Copyright 2014
Did you miss Robin’s previous post? Click here to read How to Lose Your Soul Part IX
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