Last week, we talked about soul care – the thing that most of us are not good at.
Many of us have heard the phrase “pulling yourself up by your bootstraps”, but what does it really mean? Accordingly to google, people understood the expression to mean
“attempting to do something absurd” until roughly the 1920s at which point it started to evolve toward the current understanding: to do something without any outside help.
WAIT – WHAT? How many times have we used that slogan without realizing we need each other. We are not that great on our own—at all.
- Isn’t it amazing how things evolve.
- That might work with pants or boots, but not with souls.
- Soul stains are quite different.
We all need help from each other and mostly God.
All of us have experienced staining a garment we really like, and despite all our efforts to make the stain go away – it is there to stay. We all eventually take the loss and then we get over it. Soon enough, we buy something else, and that garment is forgotten.
Well, try telling your soul to pull itself up by its own bootstraps. It can’t. I will try but it will fall short each time.
Shame cannot be washed off like grime off our hands or off of our boots.
It’s not quite that easy.
Today, I want us to look at Psalm 34:5 and remember that God alone has the power to remove the stains on our souls and make our faces radiant once again.
“Oh, magnify the LORD with me,
And let us exalt His name together.
I sought the LORD, and He heard me,
And delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed.
I love that promise.
Deep down, we all know the grime of this world requires blood NOT SOAP.
It requires patience and persistence. It requires forgiveness.
It requires deep grace.
It requires help from others.
Friends, soul stains are to be taken to the Lord in prayer —repeatedly.
Just like we wash our clothes and our bodies…our souls need more than a sprinkle.
Psalm 34 has a treasure of glorious promises that remind you to enter your lane of praise and will invite
you to leave your mere existence of trying to figure things out of your own.
Friend, you will never be enough by yourself.
You are loved beyond measure and God is the only one who has the power to cleanse your soul.
Run to him and see what He longs to share and gift to you today.
HAPPY VALENTINES TO YOU LOVELY…