“My soul yearns, even faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.”- Psalm 84:2
As John Ortberg concludes Chapter 6 of Soul Keeping, he reiterates that the soul never will be satisfied without God. When Pastor Ortberg was a young associate pastor at his first church, the senior pastor invited him to preach. The first three times John preached, he fainted. John often has wondered what it must be like to desire God so deeply that it leads you to fainting for the Lord.
Our soul’s need for God is enormous, and the neediness only invites more of God’s generosity. When we acknowledge our basic neediness, our soul begins to grow in God.
Francis Fenelon, a brilliant spiritual writer and cleric, stood up to King Louis XIV of France. Displaced as the royal tutor, he lived disgraced in exile. Yet, that is precisely where his soul thrived. In The Royal Way of the Cross, Francis described his understanding of his soul’s condition:
“In order to make your prayer more profitable, it would be well from the beginning to picture yourself as a poor, naked, miserable wretch . . . who know but on man of whom he can ask or hope for help; or as a sick person . . . ready to die unless some pitiful physician will take him in hand and heal him. These are true pictures of our condition before God . . . . and God alone can heal you.”
Today’s question: How has the Lord brought healing to your soul during your desert, transitional journey to revisioned and revitalized calling? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “The law of consequences”
