As a sign of his love and affection, God the Father kisses the soul of his treasured child.
The soul is kissed by God in its innermost regions.
With interior yearning, grace and blessing are bestowed.
It is a yearning to take on God’s gentle yoke,
It is a yearning to give one’s self to God’s Way.
Hildegard of Bingen
Our SOUL has 3 functions. The soul animates us with thought, emotion and behavior. It’s distinguished from, but exists together with, the body. The soul is where our self-consciousness and personality reside—those qualities that make us unique.
- MIND consists of the consciousness residing in our human brain, manifested especially in thought, perception, memory and imagination. It gives us intellectual power and ability to reason. The focus of our mind is on thought processes.
- EMOTION provides our consciousness with feeling. It permits ability to express love, contentment and happiness or hatred, anger, fear and sadness. Our likes and dislikes reside in the emotion part of our soul.
- WILL allows us to deliberately choose or decide upon a course of action. We freely exercise it according to our discretion, pleasure and inclination. Our will gives us power to exert control over conflicting tendencies and arrive at our own decision.
Our SPIRIT also has 3 functions. The spirit allows us to understand and discern the existence and truths of God. It gives us the ability to communicate with him. Through our spirit, we can relate to and have a relationship with God.
- INTUITION aids us in knowing without the use of rational processes. We gain knowledge of God by immediate cognition, a perceptive notion or insight. Intuition gives us a sense or impression of something not evident or deducible.
- CONSCIENCE affords us the ability to recognize the distinction between right and wrong conduct, together with the feeling that one ought not to do wrong. Our conscience gives us a feeling or consciousness of our conformity to our own sense of right conduct.
- COMMUNION provides for the act of having intimate communication with God. We share our thoughts and feelings, in close rapport, through our relationship. Communion is a participation in spiritual fellowship with our God.
Our SPIRIT influences our SOUL. When we nurture our spirit, we cultivate a space for God’s Spirit to flow into our human spirit. The components of our soul—mind, emotion and will—are all influenced by spiritual life. If we don’t heed what God speaks into our spirit, our focus will lie in the soul part of our being. There, life revolves around its intellectual, psychological and social aspects. Or, our soul may be influenced by the sensual desires of our physical body. Then, our body teaches our soul.
With my soul have I desired you in the night; yes, with my spirit within me will I seek you early. Isaiah 26:9a
Has your soul been kissed in holy conversations with God? Do you continually yearn for more of his love and ways?
Susi Robinson Rutz 