A sudden noise alerted me that something
wasn’t right.
As my daughter and I hiked a rain-swollen
trail, I felt something wasn’t quite right with my left boot. Looking down, I
saw the sole had separated from the boot. It barely hung on just at the tip. My
daughter got a good laugh at my situation, but I didn’t think it was so funny.
At least the temperatures were warm, so walking through the water with a wet
foot, although uncomfortable, didn’t give me frostbite.
As I walked along, flapping, I suddenly
heard a noise from my right boot. When I looked down, I saw the same thing had
happened to it. Only this sole didn’t hang on for dear life. When I lifted my
foot, it fell off. Now, I was soleless. For the next five miles, I carried my
soles and walked in what had deteriorated to nothing more than moccasins.
Since the trail we hiked was extremely
rocky, my feet soon began to hurt, slowing us down. We finally made it back to
the car, but for the next week, my feet ached. Of course, my daughter, being an
Essential Oil enthusiast, had oil that took away my pain.
The pain I experienced from walking
soleless doesn’t begin to compare to the pain I will feel if I lose my other
soul. The one Jesus refers to when He says to fear the One who can destroy both
body and soul in hell.
Some believe our composition is
three-fold: body, soul, and spirit. Others combine the soul and spirit part and
view our composition as a dichotomy. And still, others believe we’re nothing
but a body, which means death ends everything.
The Bible, while teaching the unity of our
person, does teach that a temporary separation of our body and soul will take
place at death. Our soul—the real us … our mind, will, and emotions—will live
on until the final resurrection when Jesus will give us new bodies made for our
eternal home and reunite them with our souls.
The larger question is not how all this
takes place, but rather where we’ll spend eternity. In telling His disciples
about their upcoming persecution, He warns them to fear the One who has power
over the body and soul: God.
Death isn’t our end. We’ll spend eternity
in one of two places: heaven or hell. Our choice for or against Jesus while
we’re living determines which place we’ll go. God determines our destiny based
on our choice to accept Him or reject Him.
Fear often means reverence, but in this
instance, it probably means to be afraid of. Anyone who has this kind of power
demands my attention and reverence.
I survived my soleless hiking trip, and we
all can survive the after-death trip, too, if we choose to entrust our souls to
Jesus Christ.
Will you be a soul survivor?
Prayer: Father, we thank You for providing
a way for our sins to be forgiven and for us to be with You forever.
Tweetable: Are you a soul survivor?
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