Have you ever noticed that the deepest and truest things of life are those that are of the spirit?
Meat Loaf sings that he’d do anything for love. Hillsong United sings of having faith that God will guide us through all darkness.
The Gospel Soul Children sing of having peace live a river, running through the soul.
And, in 1787 the author only known as “K” wrote the hymn, “Fear not, I am with thee, O be not dismayed, for I am thy God and will still give thee aid.”
So, we have four intangibles…things of the spirit: love; faith; peace and fear.
We cannot hold these things in our hands, see them clearly or even point to them with any real precision. Even so, these spiritual factors are what most form our lives.
So, doesn’t it make sense to focus our attention upon love, faith, peace and the elimination of fear in order to have wholeness and abundance?
Some years ago, we had a cat named Cassie. I am delighted to say that she now resides in the Sunnybrook Kitty farm where cats chase mice and lay around in the sun all day.
Anyhow this cat was the original ‘fraidy cat. She was a paranoid-schizophrenic that one day even became afraid of her own food.
Yes, you read that correctly. We’d put food in her bowl and she’d run away from it.
All through the day she would sneak over to the bowl and eat one little morsel at a time. Who knows why?
We changed brands of cat food. Nothing worked.
The irony was that there was an endless supply of blessings coming from our end in the form of a twenty-five pound bag of Purina and some high-dollar stuff too.
Yet that intangible thing named ‘fear’ was causing her to starve. And, there was absolutely no threat to this cat!
We even wondered if something was caught in her throat. I didn’t want to but I even checked that out and found nothing.
Eventually, she got over this neurosis all on her own. And, she began to eat food!
But the lesson from this ‘fraidy cat was a powerful one. Christ is pouring out blessing upon us ceaselessly from his end but I suspect we may be too frightened or blind to take the steps necessary to receive them.
We probably even run from him more that we’d want to admit.
As a result the other necessary spiritual things of life such as love, faith and peace never come to us in all fullness.
Furthermore, I believe there will always be a leaping off point when it comes to our trusting in Christ. At some point we will have to leap.
We can reason as far as the edge of the cliff but in one way or another, we must leap. And, depending upon our circumstance(s), we may need to leap frequently in order to continually move to higher ground.
We may need to change jobs. We may be in relationships that are toxic and we either need to change them radically or end them.
We might even be in a dead end career that threatens our livelihood and even our mental health, yet we may be too entrenched or attached to let go.
We may even need to go back to school for retraining or to make a total career change and yet we freeze because we see a mountain before us that seems impossible to climb.
Even so, remember that the deepest, truest things of life are those that are of the spirit and there is great news. These are things that we cannot lose.
Jesus said, “But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:20-21 NIV).”
If we make Christ our #1 treasure and focus upon enriching the soul, we are in a no lose situation. We can trust and then leap.