It’s Free Friday! Today is the day you let go of the things in your life that keep you down or hold you back from all God has for you. To celebrate, I’m giving away a copy of “The Priest’s Graveyard” by Ted Dekker. Keep reading to find out how to enter.
I got to meet Ted Dekker and hear him speak at the Re:Write Conference. He shared his thoughts on writing, but more importantly, he shared about his faith. He played one of those videos where it starts on earth looking at a microorganism and pans out all the way out to space and somehow ends up back on earth again. While it was playing, you could hear the faint sound of “Yahweh” being called out. I started paying more attention to that than the video itself. Ted then talked about how our souls cry out to God.
In Psalm 84:2, the psalmist wrote about his soul crying out. In Psalm 42, he wrote that his inner self thirsts for God. I believe our souls want badly to connect with God. They want to hear from Him. I think that’s why there’s such a feeling of contentment when you are in a prayer meeting or a worship service when you can feel God’s presence. Your soul is being satisfied and recharged while you’re in His presence. It’s thirst for being with God is quenched.
We tend to be pretty good at satisfying our physical thirst, but not always our spiritual thirst. We care for our physical bodies more because we are more in tune with it. Our spirit has needs as well, but often we just disregard it or tune a deaf ear to hearing it cry out for Yahweh. David was in tough with his soul. He could sense that it was calling out, that it was thirsty. He decided to be led by His spirit rather than His flesh. I believe that’s one of the main reasons that he was known as a man after God’s own heart.
When Jesus was on the garden before the crucifixion, His soul was crying out to God. He asked the disciples to pray with Him. He invited them to let their souls cry out as well. Instead, they fell asleep. They tended to their body’s needs instead of their spiritual needs. In the Message, Jesus told them, “There’s a part of you (soul) that’s eager, ready for anything in God. But there’s another part of you (flesh) that’s as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire.” We fault the disciples for sleeping all the time, but don’t we do the same thing? Don’t we listen to the weaker part a lot?
David spoke to his soul to wake it up, to challenge it or to cheer if up. If you find yourself listening to the part that doesn’t want to do anything for God, speak to your soul. Find the place where you can quench its thirst for God. Fasting is a great way to do that. It denies the weaker part of your body and feeds your soul. Do a one day, two day or three day fast. It doesn’t have to be 40 days. If you find you’re lacking the ability to do what God asked you to do, quit feeding your flesh and start feeding your soul. It’s ready to do all that God wants you to do. You just have to start listening to it.
If you would like to win “The Priest’s Graveyard” by Ted Dekker, go to the Devotions By Chris Facebook page here and “like” it. I will randomly pick one person tomorrow (July 19, 2014) who has liked my page. If you have already “liked” my page, you are already entered for this drawing. I would appreciate it if you would invite your friends to like my page so they can receive encouragement from God’s Word too.
Devotions by Chris Hendrix 