Have you ever felt like you were playing with fire? That its smoggy, ashy fumes are choking you but you still don’t draw yourself away, even when your hand is being burnt.

Its a picture of captivity. Why don’t I guard my soul as vehemently as I guard my body? Perhaps its because I just don’t know how valuable my soul is.

When Scriptures speak of Jonathan’s love for David the prophet, it says, “the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul” (1 Samuel 18:1).

So what does it really mean to love your own soul?

“Know O beautiful soul that you are the image of God, know that you are the glory of God, know then, O man, your greatness and be vigilant.” -St Ambrose of Milan

Sometimes we are blinded from this very greatness that St. Ambrose speaks of. We feel so human, in every broken kind of way. Our memory fades from the calling to which we received. We have unlearnt that we are made for greatness, by Greatness. Our minds haven’t quite descended into the depths of our hearts to know these truths.

“The more we get what we now call ‘ourselves’ out of the way and let Him take us over, the more truly ourselves we become.” -C.S Lewis

If only we knew of the way God looks at you and me. It’s in the same way He looked at a shepherd boy—David—and saw in him a king. Each of us is in the process of becoming. Becoming beauty out of the ashes. Living in the dirt of our own sin, but destined to be butterflies. Perhaps living the resurrection just means being yourself, in the fullest way. Dark but lovely. No matter how dark we are, “God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). Not even an inch of darkness can out shadow the shine of your lovely.

“Like Michelangelo who looked at a rough, shapeless stone one day and saw a statue of David in it, Jesus was constantly looking at people in terms of what they can become. We may be defeated, degraded, soiled, enslaved by our pas­sions, yet through Christ we can be redeemed.”  -Anthony Coniaris

It’s in this knowing that we learn to guard our souls zealously. We learn to build the walls of Jerusalem because we know that deep inside there is treasure.

So, brush off the dirt and be ready to receive the promise of the Father.

“For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.” Hebrews 10:36

The promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit, will bring to your remembrance all things. Remembrance of who you really are. We were made for worship, and every moment in our lives we are bowing down to something, so if in those moments we don’t see God, we are worshipping an idol. So allow Him to bring us prostrate before the throne of grace – let Him point us back home, back to where we belong.

“He is the source of holiness an intellectual light for every rational power’s discovery of truth, supplying clarity, so to say through himself. He is inaccessible in nature but approachable in goodness. He fills all things with power but only those who are worthy participate in him. He is not participated in all at once but shares his energy in ‘proportion to faith”. He is simple in substance but manifold in powers. He is present as a whole to each and wholly present everywhere. He is proportioned out impassibly and participated in as a whole. He is like a sunbeam whose grace is present to one who enjoys him as if he was present to such a one alone.” -On the Holy Spirit , St Basil the Great.

(Picture courtesy of Chartchai Yodsin)