What about the soul?

So what about the soul? Your soul for example. Or the souls of your loved ones?

Last week my father passed away. I held him in my arms when he breathed his last. It wasn't an easy thing to experience. My brother and my daughter were next to me. My mom couldn't bear to witness it so she decided to wait it out in the other room while weeping quietly.

One minute there he was, fighting for each breath, next minute he breathed his last and he was gone.

Where will your soul depart to when you breathe your last? Younger people don't seem to think too much about these kind of things. This also has to do with the way kids are brought up. Death is with us from an early on. It's the job of parents to introduce the concepts of life and death to their kids. Not doing it is a terrible omission on the part of any parent. But I can also imagine that this would be a confusing topic for parents who lack faith in God, to talk about with their kids.

20 years ago on his 65th birthday I took my dad out to a special dinner. I didn't have a present for him. The present I had was to offer to lead him in a prayer to accept Jesus as His Lord and Savior. Which he did. It had a profound impact on his life. I trust my father is with Jesus now in a place the Bible calls Heaven.

I trust we will be together one day, and our entire family.

The soul is who we are. We live in a body. We are a spiritual being - a soul as Scripture refers to it.

No one can measure the soul using the scientific method. And yet the soul is a fact. We can think, feel and make rational choices. The soul is timeless like time itself. Incorruptible and eternal, deserving a place for eternity designed for it.

The soul can be defiled by sin or washed clean and regenerated by the incorruptible Blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God.

Seek Him. Open up to Him. He is not a man to lie. He alone deserves our worship. There are no other gods.

Don't wait until tomorrow. There might be none. Accept his goodness now and start over with a heart renewed by forgiveness.

The world is a sad, broken place. It will never be Paradise. But your soul can flourish in the midst of the brokenness. Healing is awaiting you. Health belongs to you. Today and now, not someday. Your soul matters. You matter. For eternity!

Below is one of my most favorite pictures of my dad when he was younger, in his 30's.