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fyodor
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 179
| Posted 9/4/2003 6:06 PM (GMT -6) |   | In the last year there have been 4 sermons on related issues within the two churches that I've attended that have sent me into a spiritual impasse. One of which actually led to me stepping away from the boards for the last several months.
The impasse is still there, but I somehow have regained the sanity to participate here again. But I'm interested in hearing thoughts from others on the subject.
The most recent teaching focused on compartmentalizing (for the sake of discussion) Spirit, Soul, and Body. The idea being that allowing oneself to be influenced by the body means that we are in a sense visceral and reactive to our senses. Being influenced by the soul would be relying on thougts, emotions and intelligence as a guide. And, the influence of the spirit is essentially just that, being led by the Holy Spirit, or the spiritual. The standard 101 discussion.
I find myself at this impasse in the realm of the soul. (background info here-->) I'm an extremely introverted person, overly-read, under-communicated, struggling with bouts of depression that at times can feel good just because it feels like something, overly-counseled for somebody my age, can't stop thinking, struggle with being on the verge of those slightly existential, slightly schizophrenic moments when I have pushed my brain past the point of being able to decipher whether any of this is actually happening or if I'm somehow watching it from the outside....yada yada yada....Point being, I'm stuck in my head much of the time....
So anyway, this sermon this weekend was about worship using the decrease/increase analogy (i.e. allowing myself to decrease that Christ may increase). I found myself worshipping in total freedom, as if it was just me and the Holy Spirit. I essentially allowed myself to be reduced to nothingness, nothing but a vessel through which God could be glorified (hope that doesn't come off holier than thou, I have no intention for it to sound that way).
Well now its Thursday and the moment has fleeted, the confusion sets in and I'm looking for more. More of the same more of something different, more of anything that is God-originated. So I meet with my pastor this morning and have some helpful and intense theological and relational discussion regarding my struggles. One thing he said had an impact on me that made all else pale for whatever reason.
Pastor E. said, "At some point if you continue to seek after it, you will get to the point of life-changing spiritual transformation when you allow your spiritual intellect to override your soul intellect.
On any normal day, that would go in one ear and out the other, but today I was ready to listen and be impacted by that statement. It never occurred to me that I could have a spirtual intelligence and a soulful intelligence that are almost in a struggle for dominance and that I could allow one to decrease that the other may increase....hmmm....this is all starting to make sense in my head like few non-pragmatic things ever do.
I realize I'm rambling, an epiphany will do that, but does anybody have any thoughts???
†††"One rarely finds an exposition of which it holds true that the exposition is that which is expounded." – S. Kierkegaard | | Back to Top | | |
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