“Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!” Romans 11:33

One Dimensional

Walk His Way Revisited

I loved to play with paper dolls when I was a little girl. For hours, I would carefully color in the paper clothing, then cut around the edges, being very careful not to cut off the little tabs that would hold the clothing onto the glossy, thick cardboard girls and boys dressed in their underwear. Shirts and dresses would hang from shoulders and wrists. Pants and skirts would be affixed at the waist and ankles. Hats would attach to hair; tiny shoes with built-in socks would affix to feet that perpetually pointed outward.

One-dimensional dolls. So many things in those days were one-dimensional.

One thing that was never meant to be one-dimensional is our spiritual self. We were created spirit, soul, and body. Thatʼs 3-D in real life.

For a long time after I met the Lord, I was a one-dimensional Christian. Body involvement only. My body went to church on Sundays and sat in the pew. My mouth sang hymns. My eyes read Bible verses the preacher told us to read–although we never read them from actual Bibles. We found the verses in our paper handouts for each Sunday. (No one actually brought a Bible to church. Bibles were these giant, heavy hardback books too big to carry to church. They sat on coffee tables. Family genealogies were handwritten inside the front cover.)

Spirit and soul–heart and mind–this is part of the dimension we were created with. It is with our heart AND mind AND body that we are to worship and know and experience the Lord. There is a deep place God created in us that yearns to know Him, to experience His fullness, that is beyond our physical body. Our spirit longs for Him. Our mind cries out for Him.

Some people call this longing “an empty place waiting to be filled”, a “hole” of sorts. Perhaps it is. I just know that without Jesus, I am incomplete. And with Him, I am whole.

 Lord, I want to know the height, the length, the breadth, and the depth of You. Take me off the path of living in only one dimension, and let me know and follow You with my whole spirit, my soul, and my body. In Jesusʼ Name, Amen.