Self: Where is Your Soul? - Ron

In Tragedy in the Church, Tozer brings the body of Christ to the forefront and questions its veracity. We would not disagree with what Tozer writes, and certainly not with the small excerpt to which I am referring in this post. However, finishing the reading left me pondering thoughts deep enough for me to begin a post.

The comparison runs simply enough. Scripture tells us that we are the body of Christ. We understand from First Corinthians 12, Romans 12, and other places that the Spirit gives believers gifts and God has a place for each believer in the body. We understand–with the help of Audio Adrenaline, no doubt–that we are to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ out in the world.

As Tozer puts it, “Every true Christian, no matter where he or she lives, is a part of that body…”

It is the end of Tozer’s sentence that caused me to pause and reflect deeply: “…and the Holy Spirit is to the church what our own souls are to our physical bodies.”

The thought struck me: as the church goes, so goes culture (typically). Our culture is obsessed with building soulless replicas of ourselves. Have we become obsessed with building a soulless replica of our worship?

It is easy to look at churches and wonder from where their help truly comes. By and large, church services are ruled by schedules and programs. The messages are planned weeks in advance. The songs are planned. The announcements are even planned (though still we miss them). The buildings are designed for creature-comforts. A telling sign that Douglas Wilson suggests is due to viewing people like consumers rather than souls.

But I don’t want to take the road of pointing out faults in the American church. I feel like there are a lot of people on that road already. Besides, I am responsible for exactly zero churches (or their services). But I am 100% responsible for myself, and if I am honest, the question of soulless worship must begin there. You see, I began writing this blog post more than one week ago, and much can change in a week.

For the first time as a parent, I had a child not speak to me for multiple days. I don’t imagine this is anything outside of the ordinary parental existence. I remember when I thought my dad was enemy number one. But I am also old enough to lament those times.

Always the introspective one, I began searching for faults of mine in this family upheaval that felt–at the time–like a real emergency. As if I imagined my child would truly hate us forever. True to form, I found that I had played multiple villainous roles in the debacle of both parenting and child-ing.

I like control. Which was much harder to type than it should have been.

I want things done a certain way. You might be surprised to know that I typically enjoy things done the way that I do them. After all, if I thought the way that I did something was ineffective or inefficient, I would do it a different way.  For example, I like to put things back where I found them so that I know where they are the next time. I do this with clothes, keys, important documents, books, video game controllers, Blu-ray disc cases, and every other blessed thing that I ever use.

But my family–I love them–does not operate on this elevated plane of existence.

I like to set one alarm each day. When that alarm rings, I fly out of bed ready to start the day. Some in my family–I love them–like to set multiple alarms which begin ringing long before we are required to greet the day. Others like to be told several times a day to get out of bed, which seems to me like disobedience and disrespect after a certain point.

Those are miniscule examples, but enough to get the point, especially if you live with someone that likes things done a certain way. I like control, and my need for control totally overlooked the fact that God has my children in a growth program much like the one that He has me in. I want them to do things my way. I want them to be as grown as me. But God is growing my children, and He is doing it even when they aren’t speaking to me. God is growing my family even when dad is screaming to get out of bed for the third time. 

I know He is growing them because it is His job and responsibility to grow them.

Don’t get me wrong, I know my duty as a dad. But I can’t force my kids to change. I can’t force a love for the Word down my children’s throat and expect anything but a gag reflex. Just like they can’t force me to wake up and spend time with the Lord. I can’t force respect, although I can demand it and provide consequences.

You may be wondering what this post has to do with the beginning few paragraphs. That’s fair. I began noticing that my need for control spills over into my personal walk with the Lord, too. And it took the beginning few paragraphs of this post and a rough week of parenting to find that out.

It is in my personal life that I am not leaving real and active room for God to work. It is in my personal study that I have become so organized that I leave small room for the Spirit to direct me. It is in my own heart that I see deadness of attitude toward worship services, little expectation of the miraculous, and barely a hope to experience God in a real, life-changing way.

It is easy to point to the body at large and ask: “Where is your soul?” It is a harder thing to take the bony finger of judgment and turn it within. To find the courage to ask, “Where is my soul?” is not easy. Maybe that is why it took an upheaval for me to see that God can even work through a pre-planned day-by-day devotional book featuring A.W. Tozer and a stubborn teenager. Because the work is HIS in the first place. And HE will complete it (1 Thessalonians 5:24). He says He will (Philippians 1:6). It will be done (Isaiah 43:13).

I don’t know where you find yourself today. Maybe lamenting a prodigal. God will complete the work He starts. Maybe you are lamenting the death of life-changing worship in your own heart. Tozer also wrote "the average Christian is so cold and so contented with His wretched condition that there is no vacuum of desire into which the blessed Spirit can rush in satisfying fullness." Does that describe you?

God will complete the work, and He can work through the most amazing things. So ask yourself, “where is the ‘soul’ in my walk with the Lord?”