"He restores my soul" - Psalms 23:3

"He restores my soul" Psalms 23:3

When writing the 23rd Psalm, King David made a statement about something that most of us know very little about. It’s the soul. David tells us that God restores our souls. So that we can understand what that means, we have to settle this question: "What is a soul?"

In Genesis 2:7, we read that God created everything that exists and in the midst of that creation, He placed man. Man was given a physical body with a mind and a heart, but then God did something. He breathed into him. When He did that, man became a living soul.

A soul is different from a body. It’s not physical. It is spiritual in nature. With it, man became something unlike the rest of creation.

A soul is best explained this way. You HAVE a body, you HAVE a mind, you HAVE a spirit and you HAVE a heart but you ARE a soul. Your soul is what all of those things make up. Our soul is what makes us unique among all other creatures.

A living soul needs to be cared for and strengthened just like anything else. Your body is nourished when you feed it. Your mind is strengthened when you absorb knowledge. Your heart grows when you give it love and compassion. We strengthen our soul through a relationship with God that we call worship.

It’s a lot like charging your cell phone. If you don’t renew your soul once in a while you start to weaken spiritually. You lose your connection with God and things begin to fall apart.

This is why it is so important to be regular in our meeting with God. If we go a long time without going to church, praying or reading our Bible, it's like letting the power go out in our phone. A dead phone, or even a phone with a low charge, isn't useful to anyone. But, when it is fully charged and working, it can be an incredible thing. Unfortunately, most of us live in low-power mode or with no charge at all.

God restores our soul when we come to Him in worship ... singing, praying, fellowshipping and hearing His Word. It’s how we are designed. We have been given the gift of life, but to live a truly meaningful life, we must build that relationship with God, coming to Him to refresh our souls on a daily and weekly  basis.

Acts 3:19

“Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”