How's Your Soul?: Why Everything that Matters Starts with the Inside You

by Judah Smith

When it comes to our souls’ walk with God, we want to see that quantifiable progress. We expect to be better: better husbands, better wives, better parents, better employees, better humans. That will happen, of course. And when it does, it’s awesome. As we spend time with God, we will advance. We will change and improve. But we have to remember that the point of our walk with God is not arriving. The point is walking. The point is being in relationship with God and experiencing life together. Growth and change are great, but they are not the main goals. In our souls’ walk with God, consistency is more important than growth. If we just stay the course, we will get to where God wants us to go. There might be a few switchbacks and setbacks and roadblocks along the way, but they won’t stop us. God sees the whole journey from start to finish, and he’s more focused on the pace and steadiness of our walk with him than on reaching some external milestone.

Here is Philippians 1:6 again: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Let’s look closer at what this verse has to say about the progress and constancy of our souls.

So why wait for God? Why not just force change any way we can? Because his kind of change is the only authentic, lasting, soul-level change. We can change the outside, but God alone can change the inside.

In one of the last verses of the Bible, Jesus says about himself: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Revelation 22:13). In other words, this is so inherent to who God is that he calls himself the start and the finish. He names himself the A to Z. God is the beginning and the end and everything in between. If God started a work in you, you can be sure he intends to complete it. Your hang-ups and mess-ups don’t take him by surprise. At no point in the process does he say, “This is more than I expected. You are in worse shape than I thought. I’d better cut my losses and give up on you.” God has you in a process, and he is probably less worried about your progress than you are. He can see the end from the beginning. He sees the whole panorama. You might not feel like you are progressing, but you are.

our souls are home when they return to God. Yes, God cares about our happiness; but he knows we will only find true and lasting satisfaction when we make him the focus of our existence. That takes some getting used to, to be honest. It takes some intentionality. We have to learn how to take God into account, because for much of our lives, he hasn’t been part of the equation.

Our souls are eternal. That’s what the Bible teaches. Our souls had a beginning, but they will have no end. We don’t just cease to exist. This physical body and existence will end, but the inside you and the inside me are going to be around forever.

by definition, forever will never end. Most of the time I can barely think beyond next weekend, much less comprehend eternity. I’m lucky if I know what I’m doing for lunch—how can I make plans for forever? And yet thinking about eternity is one of the healthiest things I can do for my soul.

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (verses 9–10) Jesus is saying that when we dialogue with God, we need to consider where our Father is: he is in heaven. Jesus is saying, “I want heaven to be on your mind when you talk to God.” Why is that important? Because earth is what consumes our minds more often than not. Even when we approach God in prayer, we often do so from a limited, finite perspective. We see the size of our problems instead of the size of our God. We see our weakness instead of God’s strength.

Paul wrote this to the Colossian church: If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:1–3) Paul and Jesus were communicating the same thing: we are to orient and organize our lives around heaven’s reality. I don’t know about you, but I am really good at organizing my life around earth’s reality. It’s easy. Jobs, appointments, bills, aches, pains, frustrations, annoyances, relationships, vacations, retirement—it’s natural to build our lives around these things. It’s our default. But these verses tell us that things have changed now. For those of us who have put our faith in Jesus, our souls have been made alive. Now everything is different. We don’t have to live like we did before. Now our lives revolve not around earthly priorities and problems and passions, but around heaven. We can structure our lives taking eternity into account.

I started this book by stating that our souls find their homes in God. But the ultimate goal for our souls is not to spend a few decades with God on this pained, polluted planet called Earth. It’s to spend eternity with him in a place called heaven. Our souls find their homes in God, and heaven is the context in which that relationship will flourish long after this life ceases. Therefore, our souls are healthiest when they are focused on the reality of an eternity with Jesus. Our souls need heaven. Most of us probably don’t spend much time thinking about heaven. Why? Because earth gets in the way. Earth is present and all too tangible. Our five senses are constantly aware of its reality. But heaven is eternal, ethereal, invisible. Maybe that’s part of the reason we forget heaven—we can’t wrap our brains around it.

If we are going to live like Jesus, we need to think about heaven more. It’s as simple as that. Ironically, when it comes to our passions and priorities, we often live as if this planet were forever and heaven were temporary. Jesus came to show us a new way to be human, a new way for our souls to approach and process life.

We find peace, stability, and sanity for our souls when we frame our existence in the context of heaven. Heaven is not some ambiguous, random concept that will only make sense on our deathbeds. Heaven can serve us today as we consider the brevity of this life and determine to live in light of eternity. Life’s complexities and challenges would be far less complex and far less challenging if we could approach every day like Jesus did: from heaven to earth.

The great King Solomon put it this way: “[God] has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11 niv). In other words, your soul will never be complete until it finds its eternal home in God. You were made for heaven, and heaven was made for you.