When beginning early morning prayers, I recite The Lord’s Prayer, which clears my mind, and after that the 23rd Psalm as a personal affirmation. I’m all for personal affirmations — there are times when if you and I don’t affirm ourselves, no one else will. The psalm begins with: “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want (I shall lack nothing). He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters.” (Sheep prefer to drink from dams rather than streams.)
The next sentence is a longtime favourite: “He restores my soul.” The psalmist David’s likening of God’s care to that of a shepherd for his sheep moves to God’s provision and protection of him personally. So, what is the soul, and how does God restore it?
“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” This defines the human soul as an infusion of the spiritual into the physical — the soul is formed by a combination of both. At death, the spirit returns to God and the body to “the dust of the ground”. The Hebrew word for “restore” means “to bring back” – to save us and bring us back to who we really are — our true selves.
Here are three ways that a soul – you, a human being — can be damaged:
1. Over-exposure to advertising. “Use this (product) and you’ll become this (ideal person)!” These days, we are tracked wherever we go by cameras and by cookies. There’s no escaping the limitless range of products that dazzle our eyes and blast our ears. The damage is internal, in that we are led to think that without the New, Just Released, Limited Time products that bombard our senses, we’ll be less than we could be and need to be to be Ideal. But the LORD restores our souls by loving us, forgiving us, and accepting us – all priceless in value, and free-of-charge — and on acceptance, unlimited!
“God loves us the way we are, but He loves us too much to let us stay that way.” All at Christ’s expense and ours on request through heartfelt humility and genuine repentance.
2. Peer Pressure. This gives us Group Identity, which is good – we all long to belong – but at the expense of individuality. What happens when the group breaks up and you’re alone again – how do you cope? If you feel like you’re nothing without others, God wants you to know that although He sent Jesus to die on the Cross for the sins of the world – for everyone everywhere – if you had been the only one on Planet Earth, He would have sent Jesus to die for you alone. So, evaluate your personal worth not by how you look or what you can contribute to a group, but by the fact that God deemed you worth saving – how about that!
3. Self-dissatisfaction. This also relates to how you see yourself. What’s your identity? Do you have one? The shortened version of identity is ID. If ID is removed from identity, it is reduced to entity. An entity can be a thing of unknown origin: an android, an alien, or a yowie (Bigfoot). God is not dissatisfied with you – He hates sin because He is holy (clean beyond comprehension). God “hates the sin but loves the sinner” – and turns away only when His offer of eternal life by His Holy Spirit is mocked and rejected.
So, repent of your sins and confess them to God. Ask Jesus to be your Saviour and Lord. After you do, you’ll see another person when looking in the mirror, and it will be the New You. (2 Corinthian 5:16-17)
There’ll be no more self-dissatisfaction when you see Jesus in you looking back and reflecting the New You!