This past Sunday, I heard a good sermon on Psalm 25, which led to some encouraging meditation on this verse:
“To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul.”
— Psalm 25:1
A short verse we might read past quickly on our way to the rest of the Psalm. But let’s stop here and reflect for a moment.
My soul. The invisible part of me that is constantly thinking, feeling, desiring, and choosing. The part that loves, hates, fears, delights, and struggles. My inner self.
Lifting this soul up to God. What does that mean?
1. Proximity. Putting the inward person nearer to him and becoming exposed to His presence. His terrifying holiness and His comforting grace.
2. Visibility. Holding this messy and broken soul up to Him for His inspection. Entrusting it to Him, without being afraid.
3. Trust
4. Surrender
The alternative would be to clutch this desperate soul close within myself in a futile attempt to conceal. To hide and cover and draw away in fear and shame.
What a foolish thing it would be to keep this soul for myself, and not to share it in surrender to Him. To have no presence but my own to enjoy. To give this soul no exposure, except to myself.
I have found that despite my many sins and the deep brokenness (and even the disappointing vileness) of this Adamic soul, He always treats it much better than I do. The most I can do is cover it (like throwing myself on a grenade). But He CARES for it. Diffuses it. Beings His peace to it.
He alone can forgive and heal the soul. He alone knows it truly and fully as it is. He, in pure grace, treats it as a thing of value, rescuing and restoring it.
To refuse to lift the soul to Him in trusting surrender would be the ultimate act of self-destruction and self-hatred. A false kind of self-love that emaciates the thing it claims to love.
To always lift the soul to Him, regardless of its condition, is the act of love, worship and trust that flows inevitably from a knowledge of His good and merciful character—and leads to a greater knowledge of who He is.
These applications to our own souls, modeled by King David, are useful and encouraging.
But far more encouraging is the fact that the One who knew the Heavenly Father best—Jesus Christ, the Unique Son of God—lifted His soul to the Father as an offering and sacrifice on our behalf. He LIVED (and died, and RE-LIVED) this simple prayer of soul-surrender.
“Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.”
— Isaiah 53:10-11
