GodReflection: Is It Well with My Soul?
I had not the foggiest notion of what I was getting into when I enrolled in Professor Lemoine Lewis’ class History of The Christian Church. I wasn’t aware of a heritage larger than the local church where I grew up. Other than the Acts of the Apostles found in my Bible, I’m not sure I realized the church even had a history.

As with all teachers Dr. Lewis had his own mannerisms. That first day like every day that followed he walked into the college classroom with a stack of books as high as the length of his arms. Dangling by two or three fingers hung his worn leather bookbag used at Harvard. It was the place for what few lecture notes he used, the classroom role book and any papers for the day.

At each class session he lectured for the entire hour and twenty minutes at an animated speed so rapid that a broken pencil lead or a slow turn of the spiral binder would demand extra effort to catch up. He taught the story of church history like it was an action novel.

On the first page of my College Ruled Spiral I found among Dr. Lewis’ expectations for the course: Read Augustine’s Confessions and Augustine’s City of God. Three lines later Augustine of Hippo first appeared in my notes as I attempted to transcribe my old professor’s account of the fourth century saint’s influence on the church over the centuries to follow.

Occupied with cramming for examines and with the goal to cross the finish line with a minimal grade, then with life, I’ve failed to get around to reading Augustine until last month (only fifty-years later).

Augustine was born in what we know today as Algeria on November 13, 354 to a baptized Christian mother and a father who followed the custom of the time to wait until just prior to death to receive baptism. It was thought that the longer one waited the greater the quantity of sins that would be washed away.

The first nine books (chapters) of Augustine’s Confessions read like a secret journal-diary addressed to God. Written around the year 400 Confessions seems to be his attempt to understand his own soul as it related to the Creator.

Among his many observations that caught my attention was this one addressed to his Holy Maker:

“My soul is like a house, small for you to enter, but I pray you to enlarge it. It is in ruins, but I ask you to remake it. It contains much that you will not be pleased to see: this I know and do not hide. But who is to rid it of these things? There is no one but you”

Over the next several posts I envision a march around the soul. I want to look at it, examine it and inspect it. Jesus called it eternal. Sounds important. What is it? How can I feed it? Is it conflicted? Do I give it sufficient attention?

Once again, I recall the quote attributed to the author Flannery O’Connor which seems to describe my point of departure: “I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”

So, over the next few weeks I want to see what I think about my soul. I invite you to read over my shoulder. Feel free to challenge me with your own insights.

Just maybe we can grow together as we attempt to understand our soul and how to care for this eternal treasure entrusted to each one of us by our Heavenly Father.

Stay tuned.

Dr. Gary J. Sorrells
A GodReflection: Is It Well with My Soul?

Gary@Godreflection.org
http://www.GodReflection.org
http://www.MakeYourVisionGoViral.com