Who keeps my soul?

“The LORD will protect you from all evil; He will keep your soul.” (Psalms 121:7)

                It is the Lord God who keeps our souls (Ps. 121:5).  But the question arises is "Isn't there my responsibility?"  I think of this when I think of the gasoline incident in my car yesterday.  I thought about whether it makes sense if I prayed to God to go to my destination, which was church, without going to a gas station when there was only little gasoline in the car.  Apparently, the car would have stopped on the side of the road as before (the church car was standing on the side of the road because there was no gasoline as I was coming to the church morning prayer meeting).  Although it is common sense, there are so many things that we ask of God without taking our human responsibilities.

In Psalms 121:7, if we ask God, who protects our souls, to protect our souls while our spiritual fuel isn’t filled, then we will fall into the temptation of evil Satan.  We can’t boldly say that we will not commit sin against God when we fall into Satan’s temptation.  Our responsibility is to make the word our possession in the life of obeying the word of God (119:56).  It is our responsibility to keep the word of God in our hearts and not commit sin against Him (v. 11).  That is, in order to protect our souls, our responsibility is to fill our spiritual fuel tank with spiritual fuel.  Just as we know that gasoline of the car has run out when we see it fuel gauge, we must realize that our spiritual life has run out of spiritual fuel.  Then we must listen to God's voice in the desert (Hos. 2:14) and be supplied with spiritual fuel.

Now many Christians are serving the church unprotected against the forces of the evil spirits of Satan who are trying to destroy our souls.  Even though we are spiritually dry inwardly, we may well be shining on the saints outwardly as if we are standing firmly like cedars.  I think we have to continue driving a car despite our dying souls due to lack of spiritual fuel being supplied to us.  Why can't we experience the work of reviving our souls even though we pray to God?  Why can’t we experience the supply of spiritual fuel even though we hear so many sermons?  I know the word to love, but why can’t we love others?  The reason is because we don’t prioritize the protection of our souls and do our best to reach the fullness of Christ.  We aren’t protecting our souls because we aren’t making the word of God our possession by not obeying His word, which is the spiritual fuel, in order to protect our souls.  As we ask God to protect our souls, I hope and pray that we become a wise racer of faith who always has enough spiritual fuel to protect our souls.

With gratitude for the grace of God who protects my soul without sleeping,

James Kim

(As I strive to bring my spiritual fuel tank to the fullness of Christ through the spiritual fuel purification work in this morning)