This Christian Life

Spirits In A Material World

The longer I live the more I regognize the fact that we are spirits stuck inside a physical realm. We are not native in our bodies. Rather, we are forced to communicate with our souls—and with each other’s souls—through the cumbersome chemical and mechanical format of humanness.

Every now and then, I get a glimpse of the spiritual world. I feel like Frodo, having put on the ring, shedding the limitations of my body and slipping into a window of the spiritual world. These moments usually don’t last long, passing by my mind’s eye like a flash in the sky; an x-ray of sorts that lets me see beyond the physical, straight into the spiritual. After times like this, I try to go back to the impression on my mind and recall what it was that I saw.

But that’s exactly the point. I SEE. A fleeting moment is enough for me to be reminded of my feebleness as a human. I see love, compassion, wisdom, hope, clarity, and grace all rolled up into one. I understand more. I am reminded of what it means to be kind to the poor. I am reminded WHY we must be selfless.

I wish we could be rid of physical limitations like sleep, food, arguing, and tiredness. I feel like I am wearing a pair of warped, foggy glasses that only allow me to see blurryness. I wish I could “see” more often. I wish it was the rule, not the exception.

The older I get, the more spiritually aware I become. The more spiritual I become, the less “physical” I become. I think of it like the heating/cooling control in a car. To the left of the spectrum is the blue, representing “cold,” or the physical world. To the right is red, representing “hot,” or the spiritual world. As you move the slider from left to right, the blue becomes less, and the red becomes more present. Somewhere in the middle, the slider is touching both the blue and the red, creating a mixture of the physical and spiritual worlds.

Where I am on the spectrum changes from time to time going both directions depending on how much I’m paying attention. However, the goal is to move out of the physical realm into the spiritual realm as I go along—to the right on the spectrum. As a child, I only understood what I could see with my eyes. As a teen, I was enraptured by the flesh. By the time I’m 80, I hope to see with spiritual eyes.

The mind of sinful man (or mind set on the flesh) is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. Romans 8:6

The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature (or his flesh, from the flesh) will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.
Galations 6:8