It Is Well With My Soul

"Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well." 3 John 2

We had such a wonderful Thanksgiving, I'm sad to see it over already, except that Thanksgiving being over means that we begin the brief march towards Christmas. Where we spend Thanksgiving being thankful, Christmas is all about joy and celebration, and I daresay, Christmas already started for our family. Yesterday we were given some bags of clothing for the kids and all but a very small handful of pieces are going to fit them well. Today the kids and I have plans to go through their closets after school, and we're all so excited to be able to remove those things that don't really fit, but that we kept because they couldn't be replaced. It really was like Christmas with each piece of clothing that we pulled out and inspected and held up to enjoy. And now my kids are going to be warm and cozy and dressed in clothes that fit. God is so great.

Somehow thinking about that this morning made me think about this verse from 3 John today. When I read this verse, it seems to me that it's implying something. See? It says at the end "even as your soul is getting along well" and when I think of that, it seems to me that my health could be sub-par, and circumstances could be less than desirable, but that my soul is well and good. Since my soul is well and good, it seems to me that the rest of me has some catching up to do. This gives me such hope for the future, and here's why:

"being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:9

God is not a God of part-way. He isn't just going to work on part of me and let the rest of me fall apart. If my soul is well, it is God's intentions that the rest of me is going to catch up. My physical being and my spiritual being are going to catch up with my soul, which is already well, and then I will be complete in Him. It says right here in Philippians that the work which God has been doing will be completed. I know I've read this verse many times before and been encouraged by it before, but I don't think I ever paired it up with a separate verse which tells me that my soul is already well.

You know how you get together with people and you ask how each other is doing? Sometimes people use that opportunity to unload and tell you all the wrong, sometimes they just say fine or okay or good. But what if we took that opportunity and said something like "hey, my soul is doing fabulous" or "My soul is doing so well! Thanks for asking". Just thinking about that, just thinking about that fact that while the rest of me may be a huge work in progress, that my soul is doing well and is great gives me such a boost. It makes me smile, and it gives me something truly positive to focus on. And we all know that focusing on the positive is such a huge key to living as Christ did. So I plan to do that today. I plan to focus, and every time I feel something negative trying to squeeze in, or something less than desirable tries to steal my joy away, I am going to think to myself that "It is well with my soul" and see where that takes me.