Soul

When was the last time you washed your coffee mug at the office, or water bottle, or your filtered water pitcher? Kris Frieswick writes in the Wall Street Journal, “I was bred to believe that product expiration or “best by” dates are just marketing—and marketing is for rubes. When the light on top of my water pitcher insists I change the carbon filter, I use the same approach I have used for expiration dates on prescription drugs, eggs and canned soup: I ignore it. I only swap it out when the water starts to taste funky, or when it filters too slowly, which is annoying and wastes my precious waning time on Earth.

The mold and bacteria growing in my pitcher, however, were the least of my concerns, according to Caitlin Proctor, an assistant professor of engineering at Purdue University, who studies “the entire microbial ecology of what’s growing” in drinking water systems. “There’s a whole ecosystem in there,” she says.

Most of the residents of this ecosystem don’t hurt you if ingested, she says. But carbon filters don’t kill or filter some types of opportunistic pathogens, such as Legionella pneumophila (which causes Legionnaire’s Disease) and Naegleria fowleri (better known as braining-eating amoebas). And the slimy biofilm that clings to the inside of your pitcher when you don’t wash it enough will give them a nice place to grow.

The good news, says Proctor, is that these scary bad guys don’t generally hurt you by drinking them. They can ruin your day if they are aspirated, come into contact with your eyes or get near your brain.”

What is contaminating our soul that is flying under your radar? We are not to let the contaminants of the world conform us into their “mold.”

Christianity is not [currently] declining in America. At the New York Times, journalist Lauren Jackson has been doing some searching, thorough reporting for a new series “Believing.” Apparently, 92 percent of Americans say “they hold a spiritual belief in a god, human souls or spirits, an afterlife, or something ‘beyond the natural world.’”

Jackson reasons that people haven’t found a satisfying alternative to religion. She reports that for the last few decades, much of the world has tried to go without God, a departure from most of recorded history. More than a billion people globally and about a third of Americans have tried to live without religion. Studies in recent years have offered insights into how that is going. The data doesn’t look good.

Actively religious people tend to report they are happier than people who don’t practice religion. Religious Americans are healthier, too. They are significantly less likely to be depressed or to die by suicide, alcoholism, cancer, cardiovascular illness, or other causes. In a long-term study, doctors at Harvard found that women who attended religious services once a week were 33 percent less likely to die prematurely than women who never attended. One researcher on the study said, that because “they had higher levels of social support, better health behaviors, and greater optimism about the future.”

Religiously affiliated Americans are more likely to feel gratitude (by 23 percentage points), spiritual peace (by 27 points), and “a deep sense of connection with humanity” (by 15 points) regularly than people without a religious affiliation.

Religion can’t just become another way to optimize your life. Some have tried. Jackson describes secular community gatherings with pop music, morality talks, free food — but “None of us became regulars.” Going for any reason other than faith itself leaves you with little reason to stick around.

Pastor Corey Brooks spent much of the winter (of 2022) on a roof top in south Chicago sleeping in a tent. He hoped to raise awareness and resources for the South Side neighborhoods, ravaged by poverty and violence.

On the 120th day of the vigil, Brooks was joined by two other pastors Karl Clauson and Mark Jobe (the president of Moody Bible Institute). He began his conversation by asking why Jesus is the key to filling the void in peoples’ lives and transforming them for the better. In response, Jobe told this story:

I’ll take you back a few years. I'm not going to mention what mayor it was, but it was one of the mayors of the city of Chicago who came to our church. There had just been a couple of execution-style murders in the city of Chicago, and I could tell this mayor was just down. He looked at a group of maybe 40 pastors that had gathered together and he said this: “Our city is in a mess. There's violence. We don't have the answers to this. We can try to police it. We can try to educate it. We can try to create business opportunities, but we have a soul problem in this city.” And he said, “Gentlemen and ladies, what you have to offer is really the answer.” Here is the mayor of Chicago admitting our structures can't change this. This is a spiritual and soul problem. I believe that.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Our cities have a problem. It can't be policed, educated, or employed away. It is a soul problem with a sole answer. The answer is the gospel.

Beginning in 2019, the entire globe became immersed in the COVID-19 pandemic that has so massively disrupted our daily routines. And there is an understandable obsession with physical cleanliness, which is keeping pace with the spread of the virus itself. Everywhere we look are signs demanding that we regularly wash our hands and refrain from touching our faces. Personal hygiene has become paramount.

In the early stages of the pandemic, we heard of certain individuals who were hoarding a wide variety of hand cleansers and then selling them at exorbitant prices. At offices, stores, and public places are numerous containers of disinfectant wipes that we are expected to apply generously to all surfaces and objects. The disinfectant claims to kill cold and flu viruses and virtually all bacteria within fifteen seconds.

Needless to say, the concern in the wake of COVID-19 is physi­cal health. External cleanliness to guard us against infection is the goal. It is common sense to take steps to protect ourselves from such outbreaks of disease. But to put this crisis in an eternal perspective, the worst that COVID-19 can do is take your physical life. Any form of physical infection from a lethal virus can do only so much.

But there is a worse virus circulating in our world which is 100 percent fatal. It is the virus of sin, contracted from spiritual rebellion and its eternal consequences for people is far more severe. It is staggering to think that so many people obsess over their physical welfare but give little or no thought to the health of their soul.

“O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah” (Ps. 39:4-5).

If you were traveling to outer space, what would you take with you? Photographer Steve Pyke got to find out what items some American astronauts felt were significant enough for that. Starting in 1998, Pyke began a series of portraits of those who had traveled to space or walked on the Moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But he also photographed objects that had made the journeys with them. There were the wonderfully geeky working items: a case used to bring the first lunar rock back to Earth on Apollo 11 in 1969 and the geological hammer used during Apollo 12.

But then there were more personal and sometimes surprising artifacts that orbited the Earth and even made the journey to the Moon. A figurine of a Madonna, an unopened bottle of brandy, a golf club, and quotes from famous people, and a copy of the Declaration of Independence. Astronaut Rusty Schweickart brought those quotes on pieces of lightweight onionskin paper tucked inside his tunic during Apollo 9. Pyke writes, “To him, they were pieces of wisdom from Earth that would remain up there, on his person, even if he was lost during the mission.”

Each lunar astronaut was allowed only two pounds of personal items that they could bring back, so the items they chose can be curious, odd, and personal. “The objects that are documented here—the quiet and intimate minutiae—give us access to the very personal, psychological, and human side to the journey into space. What is it that these astronauts and pioneers wanted to take with them on their ultimate journey into the unknown?”

Possible Preaching Angle:

What are you taking on your ultimate journey to heaven? Many things that we spend our life pursuing, such as material possessions, money, fame, hobbies, and status, will be left behind. Among the only things we can take are our own soul (Matt. 16:25-26), our good works done with the right motive (1 Cor. 3:8, Rev. 14:13), and the people we have led to faith in Christ (Dan. 12:3; Phil. 4:1).

At the age of 35 Christian psychologist and researcher Dr. Jamie Aten was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer that had spread to his pelvis. Aten said:

For the first six months, whenever I asked for a prognosis, all my oncologist would say was: 'I can't tell you that it's going to be okay, Jamie. It's too early to tell. If there's anyone you want to see or anything you want to do, now is the time.'" Cancer wasn't the first disaster I faced. My family and I had moved to South Mississippi six days before Hurricane Katrina. But this disaster was different. There was no opportunity to evacuate as I did before Katrina made landfall. This time the disaster was striking within: I was a walking disaster.

Aten learned that the key to both traumatic situations involved what he calls "spiritual surrender." Aten writes:

Spiritual surrender helps us understand what we have control over and what we don't. In a research study I led after Katrina, we found that people who showed higher levels of spiritual surrender tended to do better. This finding didn't make sense to me at the time. It seemed like a passive faith response. Fast forward to my cancer disaster. I vividly remember taking the trash to the curb one winter morning while praying that God would heal me. The freezing air felt like tiny razor blades cutting across my hands and feet because of the nerve sensitivity caused by chemotherapy.

Wondering if God even heard my prayers for healing, I kept praying as I walked back inside my home. Then all of a sudden I dropped to my knees and prayed the most challenging prayer of my life. Instead of continuing to pray for God's healing, I asked that God would take care of my wife and children if I didn't make it.

This was the hardest prayer I had ever prayed. For the first time in my life, I truly experienced spiritual surrender. I finally understood. True spiritual surrender is far from passive—it is a willful act of obedience.

Editor’s note: As of January 2025, Jamie is a 20 year cancer survivor