The Avenues of the Soul

“Those who would not fall a prey to Satan’s devices, must guard well the avenues of the soul; they must avoid reading, seeing, or hearing that which will suggest impure thoughts. The mind must not be left to dwell at random upon every subject that the enemy of souls may suggest. The heart must be faithfully sentineled, or evils without will awaken evils within, and the soul will wander in darkness. ‘Gird up the loins of your mind,’ Peter wrote, ‘be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;… not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance: but as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.’” AA, p. 518.

Avenues are wide streets found in big cities. The best shops, foreign embassies and beautiful mansions are usually to be found on these avenues, while the soul is the seat of our personality: our thoughts, our feelings, our mind.

What connection is there between these two things, one may wonder: an avenue and the soul? And which are the avenues of the soul? What is it that triggers our mind to think in a certain way, our heart to feel in a certain way? The things we see or hear. The avenues of the soul are therefore our senses. In the same way that along an avenue there is much traffic, very attractive buildings housing embassies, shops and rich people, our senses receive an enormous variety of impressions that work a great influence upon our soul and build up our personality. We end up being the result of what we hear, see, smell, taste and touch.

As human beings we were wonderfully created. We are the crown of creation because we are the only tri-dimensional creatures composed of a body, a soul and a spirit. The spirit is to rule over our whole being, and our spirit responds to the influence of a supernatural power: God’s or the devil’s. If we allow the Lord to rule our thoughts, feelings and actions totally, then we are spiritual; if instead, we are ruled by the powers of darkness, we are under spiritualistic influence, two terms that are very similar, but very much apart in meaning.

When man in his innocent condition lived in Paradise, surrounded by nature and in contact with the angels and with God Himself, he had spiritual communion with his Creator. But after he gave in to temptation, which appealed to his senses, since Eve “saw that the tree was good for food and pleasant to the eyes,” he became carnal, ruled by his flesh.

The serpent, entwined on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, through which the devil spoke to Eve, appealed to her mind through her senses and made her see the tree as something “to be desired to make one wise,” although the tree was not called the tree of wisdom. There is no wisdom in the knowledge of evil. Wisdom can be obtained only from God if we come to Him like little children, humbly acknowledging that we know nothing and asking for it as King Solomon did.
Knowledge makes us proud, arrogant, lukewarm, while wisdom gives us insight, makes us sensitive and prudent. Much knowledge is a blessing only if combined with the knowledge of God, and a real knowledge of God makes us humble and dependent on Him for everything.

Much knowledge and little or no dependence on God is the situation of the church of Laodicea, whose members the Lord invites to a very special encounter with Him–an intimate dinner, not with candle lights, as sophisticated people like to do, but in the full light of the gospel of love, since “the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, searching all the inward parts…” Proverb 20:27. We are children of the light as long as we stand under the Sun of Righteousness.

In Matthew 6:22, we read, “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, the whole body shall be full of light but if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness…”

It is commonly said that the eyes are the windows of the soul and through them one can see man’s spiritual condition; they are also an avenue to the soul, a very broad avenue, since we are exposed to so many things through our eyes. People who live in the countryside,surrounded by nature, get messages of peace and love from their surroundings since “God is love, is written upon every bud, upon every spire of springing grass.” CC, p. 10. But those who live in cities are in big danger: violence, pornography and vanity may enter through the eyes directly to the mind to be later manifested in aggressiveness, impure thoughts and covetousness.

God, in His love and wisdom, has protected this precious organ with eyelids, eyelashes and eyebrows so that no dirt may enter into it. In the same manner we should protect our sight from falling and dwelling upon anything that may corrupt the soul. King Solomon, who started his rulership as a humble, God-fearing young man, ended up falling into deep apostasy for the simple fact that he fell into temptation due to the covetousness that arose in his heart because he did not keep his eyes fixed on the goaland allowed his sight to wander in all directions. He declares, “And whatsoever mine yesdesired I kept not from them.” Ecclesiastes 2: 10.

How careful should we all be with the direction in which we look! Even when Noah was building the ark that would
lead him to salvation, the Lord wisely commanded him to place a window on the roof and not on the sides, so that he would not see the terrible fate that the people who had rejected God’s grace had chosen for themselves. Noah had to have his eyes fixed on heaven and so should we, because it is from there that our redemption will come. In Hebrew 12:1, we read that we should “run with patience the race that is before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of
our faith.”

Not only the eyes, but also the ear is a wide avenue to the soul. Solomon says,“the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.” Ecclesiastes 1:8. This is a realityin which we live daily in differences circumstances. In big cities, it is common to see young people wearing earphonesas they walk in the street, travel by bus or underground, listening to their favorite music. Many shops and supermarkets have music playing all ?the time and even when one waits to get his telephone call answered, music is meant to shorten the waiting period.

Some people, as soon as they enter their home, turn on the TV or radio and have it playing, even if they do not listen to it. Not only music, the news or different programs do people listen to, but there is one thing most human beings pay an attentive ear to and sometimes seem to delight in hearing: gossip. The word of God says that among those who shall abide in His tabernacle are the ones who do not take reproach against their neighbor. There is a Chinese proverb that says that someone who listens to talebearers is as guilty as the one who does harm with his words and both deserve to be hung, one from the tongue and the other one from the ears. May the Lord forgive us for the times we have heard bad reports and may He protect us from sinning with our ears. It is always convenient to remember Paul’s advice to the Philippians, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever thingsare true, whatsoever things [are] honest, whatsoever things [are] just, whatsoever things [are] pure, whatsoever things[are] lovely, whatsoever things [are] of good report; if [there be] any virtue, and if [there be] any praise, think on these things” Philippians 4:8.

There are still other avenues of the soul ?that have to be guarded and which meet at a crossroad. These are the senses of smell and taste. When we have a certain weakness regarding our appetite, the sense of smell may play an alluring role. A perverted taste leads to overeating and indulging in things that are detrimental to the health. Appetite may be wakened by the sight, smell and taste of a certain dish and sometimes temperance is not practiced. The Word of God warns us against this danger in Proverbs 23:1-3, “When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what [is] before thee: And put a knife to thy throat, if thou [be] a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties: for they [are] deceitful meat.”

In the Holy Scriptures we find the exemplary life of Daniel who set guard upon this very wide avenue and became an instrument in God’s hands. Would Daniel have received a revelation and interpretation of the king’s dream and would he have been put in a high position in the Babylonian court if he had had no control upon his appetite? He was being trained to occupy a position of importance, since he was of royal lineage, and was given the privilege of eating from the “delicacies” on the king’s table, but this humble young man chose to serve the King of heaven instead, and to practice the principles of that kingdom: self-denial and temperance.

The people of Israel, on the other hand, succumbed to the lust of their palate and fell in the wilderness, thus never entering the Promised Land. Can we be running the same risk regarding our entrance into the heavenly Canaan if we follow their steps? Peter speaks of those who “have tasted that the Lord is gracious” (1 Peter 2:3) and “desire the sincere milk of the word” to grow thereby. The newly born men he refers to, who “have purified their souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit” have a completely different kind of appetite, they do not crave for exotic or even national dishes, but “do hunger and thirst after righteousness” (Matthew 5:6), and their soul pants and “thirsteth for God, for the living God.” Psalm 42:2.

Still another avenue, if not wisely guarded, will be detrimental to our soul: the sense of touch. No wonder God’s command to our fore-parents regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was, “Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it.” Gen. 3:3 And Job declares in thorough despair, “The things that my soul refused to touch are my sorrowful meat.” (Job 6:7) The contact of our souls with evil, through any of our senses, will only grieve our spirit. The evil one is constantly pointing his poisonous darts at our soul through ?the above mentioned avenues, with the purpose of polluting it and making us eat of the forbidden fruit so that we may have no access to the tree of life in the middle of Paradise.

Our success in keeping God’s moral law–the Ten Commandments, is closely related to how much we have “tasted” God’s grace and guarded the avenues of our soul. Do we receive the blessing of the Lord every Sabbath because we have allowed Him to cause us “ride upon the high places of the earth” by not doing our own ways, finding our own pleasure and speaking our own words, or we do not cross the border of our flesh because covetousness has ruled our senses during the whole week?

May the Lord help us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service! (Romans 12:1)
AMEN.

Teresa Corti