Lost & Found: My Soul

I lost my soul.

I mean, I didn’t know I had one.

What I really mean is, I knew I had one, but I’d never come in contact with it.

I came from a tradition where souls were a theological reality, not a faith reality. Souls were for saving, not for communing. Souls were for converting and, once they were converted, they were to be left alone. Souls were too mystical, too subjective, too ambiguous, too risky, too … well, you know — New Age-ish.

I came from a wonderful evangelical tradition that has always lifted up the integrity of the Word of God, the significance of the church, the centrality of salvation. But that same tradition, in the past few years, has seen an epidemic of moral failure. There seems to be an ever-increasing amount of defections from the faith. More and more of my friends are dropping out, giving up, or just placing their faith on the shelf for a while.

Why?

We’ve lost touch with our souls. We’ve been nourishing our minds, our relational skills, our theological knowledge, our psychological well-being, our physiological health … but we’ve abandoned our souls.

Our souls have been lost.

Until a few months ago, I had no idea I’d lost my soul somewhere. In the busyness and clutter of my life, as I traveled all over the world serving God, I thought my soul was just fine, thank you. But my soul wasn’t fine. I spent hours every day doing God’s work, but not one second doing soul work. I was consumed by the external and oblivious to the internal. In the darkness of my soul, I was stumbling around and bumping into the symptoms of my soul-lessness — I was busy, superficial, friendless, afraid, and cynical — but I didn’t know where all these negative parts of my life were coming from.

For months I’d known something was wrong with me. I was filled with longings I couldn’t identify, yearnings I couldn’t express, and an emptiness that seemed to be expanding. I was desperate even though I couldn’t articulate my desperation.

I decided to spend a week at L’Arche, a community for the mentally and physically challenged in Toronto, Canada. I didn’t know why, really, I just knew I needed to do something. To be honest, I expected to be inspired by Henri Nouwen and touched by the mentally and physically disabled people who lived there.

Within a few days, I became aware that my whole life was consumed with doing rather than being. I knew what it meant to believe in Jesus, I didn’t know what it meant to be with Jesus. I knew how to talk with Jesus, I didn’t know how to sit still long enough to let Jesus talk to me. I found it easy to do the work of God, but I had no idea how to let God work in me. I understood soul-saving, but I was clueless about soul making. I knew how to be busy, but I didn’t know how to be still. I could talk about God, I just couldn’t listen to God. I felt comfortable with God’s people, but I felt uncomfortable alone with God. I was acquainted with the God “out-there,” but I was a complete stranger to the God “in-here.” I could meet God anywhere … except in my heart, in my soul, in my being.

It took only a few hours of silence before I began to hear my soul speaking. It only took being alone for a short period of time for me to discover that I wasn’t alone. God had been trying to shout over the noisiness of my life, and I couldn’t hear him. But in the stillness and solitude, his whispers shouted from my soul, “Michael, I’m here. I’ve been calling you. I’ve been loving you, but you haven’t been listening. Can you hear me, Michael? I love you. I’ve always loved you. And I’ve been waiting for you to hear me say that to you. But you’ve been so busy trying to prove to yourself that you’re loved that you haven’t heard me.”

I heard him, and my slumbering soul was filled with the joy of the prodigal son. My soul was awakened by a loving Father who had been looking and waiting for me.

— Mike Yaconelli is co-founder and owner of Youth Specialties (http://www.YouthSpecialties.com) and pastors the slowest-growing church in America. Mike will be a featured speaker at the National Pastors Convention in February 2002 in San Diego. Don’t miss it! For details, go to http://www.NationalPastorsConvention.com.

From Building Church Leaders, a resource to train leaders, published by Leadership Journal(c) 2001 Christianity Today International. To find out more about Building Church Leaders, go to: http://ChristianityToday.com/bclbrochure/index.html

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