Writings of a Beholder 🌿 7.5.24
Recognizing The Soul's Need for God
Does your soul recognize its need for God?
It’s a question I’ve carried with me for the last few weeks ever since reading it in The Practice of the Presence of Jesus devotional by Joni Eareckson Tada.
I’ve been turning it over in my head and heart, and after prayerfully contemplating it for a little while I’ve come to the conclusion that yes, my soul seems to always recognize its need for God. But it’s my mind and body that I’ve noticed may take a few days, weeks, or even months to catch up with my soul — to lean in and listen to what it’s saying.
To lean in and hear the whispers of a craving, a need, we were all inherently created with — a deep-seated need for our Creator.
In his book, Soul Keeping, John Ortberg writes this about the soul’s need for God.
“The soul seeks God with its whole being. Because it is desperate to be whole, the soul is God-smitten and God-crazy and God-obsessed. My mind may be obsessed with idols; my will may be enslaved to habits; my body may be consumed with appetites. But my soul will never find rest until it rests in God.”
King David also consistently recognized his own soul’s need for God, and we see this over and over again throughout the Psalms. Psalm 63 seems to particularly echo my own soul’s desperate need, and perhaps yours, too.
“O God, You are my God; with deepest longing I will seek You;
My soul [my life, my very self] thirsts for You, my flesh longs and sighs for You,
In a dry and weary land where there is no water.”— Psalm 63:1, AMP
The soul is where our inner life resides. It’s our very essence and being that holds the sacredness of the Imago Dei — the image of God — that every human bears as their truest core identity. We are made in the image and likeness of God — beings created from a place of Love for Love — and that’s why our souls crave the very living presence of Love, the very living presence of our God who bent down, drew close, and breathed His very breath into our lungs to give us abundant life in and with Him.
One of my favorite quotes regarding how to treat the soul comes from Parker J. Palmer’s book, A Hidden Wholeness.
“The soul is like a wild animal—tough, resilient, savvy, self-sufficient and yet exceedingly shy. If we want to see a wild animal, the last thing we should do is to go crashing through the woods, shouting for the creature to come out. But if we are willing to walk quietly into the woods and sit silently for an hour or two at the base of a tree, the creature we are waiting for may well emerge, and out of the corner of an eye we will catch a glimpse of the precious wildness we seek.”
The soul, while resilient, deserves to be handled with great care and should not be ignored. Learning to listen to the soul and recognizing its deep need for God is a lifelong practice that begins in small moments. This practice of listening requires patience, gentleness, and an attunement to the voice of the Holy Spirit within.
The more I ponder the question of recognizing my soul’s need for God, the more I realize that perhaps taking notice of the soul means taking notice of other things, like the state of my mind and my body. This practice of listening may begin with paying attention to my own well-being, to the way I feel and think, and go throughout my days. To separate the soul from the body, mind, and spirit is to do ourselves a great disservice.
So maybe the deeper question isn’t ‘Do you recognize your soul’s need for God?’ but ‘How do you recognize your soul’s need for God?’
I took to social media this week and asked that very question. The answers, while worded differently, embodied a similar message.
“When nothing else satisfies.”
“When my life feels unbalanced… physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.”
“When there is no peace.”
The soul gives indicators, warning signs, when its craving to be watered by the Spirit’s presence. For me, my body responds with a lack of sleep, exhaustion, and a mounting anxiety that lives right within my chest and seems to zap the breath from my lungs. My mind races, and I feel the pressure to strive and produce and be someone the Lord never created me to be — in control and self-sufficient. Another indicator that I’ve recently discovered that tells me my soul is crying out for God in place of whatever I’m choosing to fill it with instead is a desire to stuff down my emotions rather than be emotionally honest.
It’s taken me years to recognize these warning signs, as obvious as they may seem. It’s taken years of learning how to pause, pay attention, and listen to what my body, mind, and emotions are really pointing to — my soul’s need for God’s presence.
It’s my daughter’s birth month, which means that in a few short weeks, my life is going to change forever. My husband and I are going to go from a family of two to a family of three and we’re going to have to learn how to be a team, how to be parents, how to raise a daughter, and how to rely on God in new ways. Paying attention to the soul is going to be imperative in this season of such major change and transition. Our rhythms are going to have to change, and the way we connect with God and receive what our souls need is going to look different.
The soul will speak this through our minds, bodies, and emotions. Our only responsibility is to listen and then respond.
Learning how to listen to the soul throughout every season tells us what rhythms or practices would serve as the best conduits of God’s presence. It creates space for the presence of God to come close as we cry out and express our very real need for Him. Our minds, bodies, and emotions hold so much information when it comes to the spiritual life — when it comes to our inner world. And if given the opportunity, they’ll act as arrows that point to what our souls need most.
Most of us weren’t taught how to pay attention to what our bodies, minds, and emotions tell us. That kind of language can feel overwhelming and maybe even strange to some of us. I mentioned earlier that learning to listen to the soul and recognizing its deep need for God is a lifelong practice that begins in small moments. So all we really need to begin this practice is one small moment of pausing, taking notice of how we feel in our bodies, in our emotions, and in our minds, and then letting what we notice point us toward God.
We probably won’t arrive at a clear answer everytime, or maybe we will. But those arrows, once noticed, help us to keep walking in step with the Spirit and I believe it’s in walking with the Spirit that we begin to find our truest selves, our deepest needs met, and wounds loved into wholeness.
It’s in listening to the soul, paying attention to its indicators that live within our minds and bodies, and not only recognizing but receiving our constant need for God that we are transformed from the inside out.
I’ll leave you with one last quote from John Ortberg’s book, Soul Keeping, that I return to often when reflecting on my own soul’s neediness. May his words companion you in your own journey of learning to listen to your soul’s need for God.
“The unlimited neediness of the soul matches the unlimited grace of God.”
Selah.
With you on the journey,
Celia
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Life Lately
A Breath Prayer for Your Weekend
Inhale: O God, You are my God.
Exhale: With deepest longing, I will seek You.
(adapted from Psalm 63:1, AMP)
*If you’d like to learn more about the practice of breath prayer, download this complete digital guide to practicing breath prayer.
Resources & Good Things to Pick Up
My mom is an ovarian cancer survivor who decided to create an encouraging planner for those walking through their cancer journey. It would also be a life-giving tool for caregivers and loved ones walking beside their cancer warrior. The ‘For Such a Time as This’ planner is officially available for purchase now here: Quiet Hope Co.
My Etsy shop, The Beholding Co., offers contemplative resources to help you slow down, seek still moments, and behold God’s presence with you in the everyday. Purchase some breath prayer cards, a Lectio Divina bookmark, and more.
Grab a copy of my Bible study, You Are Beloved: a 21-day study on how to root your identity in the love of God, over on Amazon. If you’d like a free 3-day sample of the study, reply to this email and I’ll send it right over!
My friend and licensed spiritual director, Kari Bartkus, offers an 8-week journaling program for those who want to process their grief and trauma with God within the safety of blank journal pages. I’ve completed the program myself and can say confidently that it was incredibly impactful and healing: Journal Gently
An Invitation to Pause & Reflect
A regular practice of reflection helps us recognize what’s going on beneath the surface of our souls so we can name it in the Lord’s presence. Because as we learn to name what we feel, what we need, and what we long for, we’re also learning to discern the Spirit’s sweet, gentle voice within our hearts and lives.
Take a few moments today or this weekend to journal or contemplate with the Holy Spirit the following question(s) or prompt(s):
How do you recognize your soul’s need for God?
Pause for a moment and take notice of your thoughts, emotions, and how your body feels. What might your soul be speaking through these indicators?
