Hi all,
“Jesus, lover of my soul” and “Jesus my closest friend” are lyrics from Hillsong’s 1993 song: Jesus, Lover of My Soul. Have you considered if Jesus is the lover of our soul, that you and I can love the souls of others while keeping all things pure and in Christ? However, anything purely of God can also be perverted into sin.
If you take ‘lover of my soul’ out of the spiritual realm to talk about a boss and his secretary, or a young woman talking about her male friend in college, or a pastor and a woman worship leader, you have the ingredients for heartbreak.
People don’t realize you can love someone’s spirit or soul, and just remain friends.
Being attracted to their spirit or soul is not necessarily God’s endorsement for a relationship or marriage. Nor is He necessarily leading you to take the ‘next step’ in the relationship. Most often, two people become friends because they do love each other’s spirit and/or soul, and it never gets physical. They are just friends. Like 2 men who became friends as boys and remain close as adults. Or 2 girls who remain friends as women. Or a boy and girl who are friends as kids, and remain friends as adults, with friendship being the limit of their relationship.
By contrast, our culture is filled with people who equate loving someone’s spirit or soul with jumping in bed to make it a physical relationship. In the 1999 movie ‘Runaway Bride,’ Maggie asks Ike: “Is there one ‘right’ person for everyone?” He responds: “No, but I think attraction is mistaken for rightness.”
They think because the attraction is there, it must be right.
Even when married to another, they justify their affair. Attraction to another can convince a person the one they are with is all wrong for them. Very often, they experience attraction to one’s soul or one’s spirit, and the assumption is made that attraction is right and must be made physical.
Think about things that our society accepts without thinking twice about it: The groupies following a rock band on their concert tour, equating their love of the music to an expression making them eager to be physical with band members. Consider the fan of an actor or actress who automatically equates loving their movies or TV shows with wanting to jump in bed with them. Or the Christian man or woman who admires and is blessed by a pastor, worship leader, TV preacher, or youth leader, who equates loving their ministry with God’s leading to make them a couple.
Lover of my soul
“Have you seen him who my soul loves?” Song of Solomon 3: 3
“Having made known to us your love in spirit.” (agape’ love in the Greek, unconditional) Colossians 1: 8
“…the Lord has found a man like His own heart.” I Samuel 13:14/Acts 13:22
“Then Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as his own self.” I Samuel 18:3
The idea that you can love someone’s spirit without crossing any boundaries isn’t taught much. I learned this early on while dating Barb. My friend in 10th grade German class, Janny, told me she knew the God behind the Roman Catholic liturgy. Being Episcopalian (Anglican), we used the same liturgy as her church. I watched the prayers of her and her boyfriend and future husband get answered one by one, and seeing proof of God’s involvement in their lives, gave myself to the Lord and Father.
I have always loved her spirit since we were 16 and she told me about Jesus in 10th grade. We were good friends throughout high school while she dated her future husband and I dated Barb. At the senior prom, I was voted King and she was voted Queen. But I loved her spirit and only her spirit. She and her boyfriend took us to prayer meetings, out for pizza, and when they married, invited us to their house for prayer and food and catching up on life. We 4 loved each other’s spirits and souls. We never crossed boundaries. The flesh never entered into the relationship. Even now over 50 years later we remain friends.
But…
A young couple met in Bible school, and were physically attracted to each other. She said she loved his heart for the Lord and big vision for ministry. She loved his potential. She wasn’t in love with him as much as she was in love with what she thought he could become as a person and in ministry. Once out of Bible school, no big ministry developed, and he wanted to get a ‘regular’ job, settle down and raise a family.
She realized she loved him physically and she loved his spirit, but she really didn’t know his soul. She didn’t know his thoughts, goals in life, how he pictured marriage and children and building a life. She was all about pushing him to be a different person seen through the eyes of building up a big ministry in which she would be featured for her singing. They divorced after 5 years of marriage (no kids, fortunately).
A couple got married 3 weeks after he told her that God said she was his wife
She responded that God had told her that he was her husband. Each had been married before, and each of their marriages ended tragically, so they carried a lot of baggage into their new marriage. They loved each other physically and loved each other’s spirit, but they got married before they could fall in love with each other’s soul.
Their souls carried baggage. Barb spent hours and hours with her. One thing the wife learned of herself was what she told Barb one day. “I grew up watching my mom having man after man, and they always beat her. I realize I grew up thinking that is how a man communicates love to a woman – by slapping her around. That’s why I’ve tried to provoke _____ . Subconsciously, I’ve tried to get him to hit me, but he is too good of a man ever to raise a finger at me. But now I know through the Lord and his example how love IS communicated between a husband and wife.”
From that day forward their marriage turned a corner for good, and they remained married until her unfortunate passing after a long illness. They loved each other’s spirit and body, but had to grow in love with each other’s souls.
Examine your heart and realize you can love a person’s spirit, you can love a person’s soul, without loving them physically. A person can also love someone physically, without loving their spirit or soul….more next week, until then, blessings,
John Fenn
