When I ask my husband about his day and give the lengthy, detailed account of my own, I am seeking to share something more than facts. We all long for connection on a deeper level because we are spiritual beings at heart. Our flesh and bone exteriors are fairly sturdy and resilient, but they are not made to last forever. Only the soul lives on.
Psychology is a combination of two Greek words: psyche or psuche, signifying “soul,” and logos, or “the study of.” There can be no study of the soul, however, apart from God who breathed life into the first man and continues to sustain life to this day. We are eternal beings formed in the image of our Creator. We have one form of being in the temporal world, but we receive another after death suited for eternity. Our soul is that part of us that exists in both cases unaltered.
We see this first in Jesus who was transfigured on the mount with His closest disciples and then appeared alive to His disciples and many others after his death and resurrection. His physical appearance was changed in both cases but after being raised from death, He also maintained scars of His suffering. He was visibly changed yet something about Him -more than scars- was so much the same that He was unmistakable.
At the tomb on the morning of His resurrection, Mary mistook Jesus for the gardener until He spoke her name. (John 20:11-18) The hearts of the disciples on the road to Emmaus burned within them as they talked with the resurrected Lord and He explained all that the Scriptures said about Himself, but they only truly recognized Him when he vanished from their sight. (Luke 24:13-34) On another occasion, Jesus called to the disciples from shore and asked about their catch in a familiar manner. John immediately told Peter, “it is the Lord!” None of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. (John 21:1-14) They knew in the same way that I knew when I opened my eyes from anesthesia, just from the pressure of my husband’s hand and the eyes of the doctor, that I had cancer.
There is a knowing that is substantiated by facts, and there is a knowing that wells up from the very core of your being. Faith stems from both factual knowledge, or truth, and our gut-level response to it. Reason can only get us so far. Belief in God through His one and only Son Jesus bridges the gap between what can be known and what is yet unseen.
“Faith shows the reality of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things we cannot see.
By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.”
Hebrews 11:1, 3 NLT
“For we live by believing and not by seeing.”
2 Corinthians 5:7 NLT
“No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit.
And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.
When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom.
Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths.
But people who aren’t spiritual can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit.
It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.
Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others.
For, “Who can know the Lord’s thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?”
But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.”
1 Corinthians 2:11-16 NLT
Blessing comes to us when we are able to make the leap and believe without seeing. Jesus gave “many convincing proofs that He was alive.” (Acts 1:3) “But these are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life by the power of his name.”
(John 20:31)
“And so we have been given the prophetic word—the written message of the prophets, made more reliable and fully validated by the confirming voice of God on the Mount of Transfiguration.
And you will continue to do well if you stay focused on it.
For this prophetic message is like a piercing light shining in a gloomy place until the dawning of a new day, when the Morning Star rises in your hearts.” (2 Peter 1:19 TPT)
Everyday I long to be seen and known, same as you. We validate one another when we are able to listen and respond with truth garnered from God’s Word, enlightened by His Spirit. Our opinions are changeable. Our emotions are fickle. They depend so much on externals like how well we slept or whether what we ate was satisfying, who we talked to a moment ago or that conversation we overheard yesterday. There is One who understands me completely, and in Him I am whole.
“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”
1 Corinthians 13:12 NLT
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