9. The Engaged Life

This final chapter is about the kind of transformation we can expect as our spirit begins to get stronger and starts to become active in our daily life. The key theme of this book has been on how to engage or activate our spiritual nature and develop it. As we do so, the dynamic that next comes into play will be how to integrate our spirit into our daily routines so that it becomes part of who we are and we become fully integrated. The ultimate goal of this integration is for our spirits to take their place as the dominant guiding force in our life, partnering in close fellowship with our Father, and bringing the enormous benefits of the resources of Heaven to both our soul and body. Only by means of our spirit will we be able to appropriate the things of Heaven and bring them into being on the earth in real and tangible ways.

Engaging the Body

One of the most exciting results of developing our spirit for me is seeing the kind of transformation that can happen in our physical body. As I mentioned above, there is an order that God has established, spirit, soul, and body. I do not see this as a linear hierarchy, with our spirit at the top, our soul in the middle, and our body at the bottom of the pile. Rather, I believe the connection is more like a triangle with our spirit at the top and our soul and body at each of the remaining two corners. The reason I mention this is that our spirit does not need to go through the soul in order to interact with our body. In fact, all my experience, as well as the evidence from Jesus’ miracles, points to the fact that our spirit is able to directly interact and affect our body without our soul even being aware of it. Instead of a stacked hierarchy, the triangle model shows that each of the three natures is able to connect directly to the other.

The reason why this area is so interesting is that it impacts something we care about deeply, the whole area of health, healing, and physical well-being. The health industry is one of the biggest and most powerful industries in the world. With that in mind, the first thing to note is that as we engage our spirit we may experience, as a consequence, some accidental healing in our body. In almost all the reference cases that I know about both personally and anecdotally, the people involved were not actively doing anything to achieve or target health or healing, they were just practising engaging their spirit. The cases range from complete restoration of function, even when part of an organ was missing, through numerous cases of accelerated healing through major surgery.

Personally, I don’t understand many of the intricacies of healing, but it makes sense to me that if our spirit is made out of the same substance as our Father and the Lord Jesus, then our spirit has huge undiscovered healing abilities just as the Spirit of our Father has. I believe that we can partner with Him to develop these abilities. In fact, I believe that this is why John G Lake was so successful, because his spirit was powerfully engaged with the Spirit of God and knew how to tap into healing intentionally.

Engaging the Soul

Next I want to talk about the journey that our spirit and soul take together. You will probably be tempted to think that during the course of this book the soul has been painted as the villain. The risk here is that we will start to think of our spirit as the hero, and come to the mistaken conclusion that our spirit is wholly good and our soul wholly bad. That is absolutely not the case.

All that I am aiming for is to correct an excessive focus on the importance of the soul, to the detriment of the spirit. The soul has a an extremely valid function, and is an equally important part of our being. We cease to exist without it. Otherwise we could throw it overboard and forge ahead with only spirit and body. The problem is not with the soul, but with the soul occupying a position that it was not designed for, and being asked to carry a load that it is neither strong enough for, nor designed to carry. This is bad for us, it produces pain and unhappiness, and it is especially bad for the soul, which is stretched beyond its capacity and becomes stressed. This then has a knock on effect on our body, and the whole person suffers. The bottom line, is that although we have three parts to our being, one of them needs to be in the lead position. And that is what our spirit was designed for and has the abilities for. Our society has placed the soul in the lead position and demands that we function only according to those rules.It does not know better.

The journey that the spirit and soul walk together is in my mind a precious one. The soul starts off in the position of leadership, and gradually concedes ground to the spirit, but it always keeps the majority ownership, the deciding vote. The bible puts it this way “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit, the things of the Spirit (Romans 8:5). It is only at a key point in the journey, that our spirit is able and allowed to take over the leadership. And the soul will never allow that to happen without a tussle no matter how much it is in its best interests. This is the crisis towards which every one of our journeys is heading. But, the good news is that once the spirit has successfully gained the leadership, then the soul will begin to prosper as it discovers its true purpose, potential and function. It will gain a freedom to flourish in ways it was previously unable to. That makes for a very happy person indeed. This process does not happen overnight. It is a gradual process, and one that cannot be rushed. It is also one that cannot be controlled, because our spirit will take the lead when it is ready, and not before.

In practical terms, the way that it works is as follows. As we care for, feed, and exercise our spirit, it will become stronger and more healthy. Our spirit will start to have more influence in our daily life and start having more of a say in our decisions. We will start to experience two different states of mind, when our soul is “in front” or leading, and when our spirit is “in front”. We will find ourselves doing things and making decisions without thinking about it and afterwards saying “wow, what just happened?”. These times when our spirit is in front will become longer and more intense. Then, at the right time, if we persist, when our spirit is strong enough, it will take it’s rightful place. When this happens, our soul will find a great peace as all the stress it has had to bear from carrying a weight it wasn’t designed to handle will disappear. We will become as Paul when he wrote

Phil 4:11 - I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.

Engaging the World Around Us

As our spirit begins to grow strong, and as we begin to invest in developing it, it will begin to bring transformation into the world around us. There are so many areas this shows up and so many ways. The point here is to give a few examples to give some hints on what to notice.

Firstly, our family situation. If you are a parent with young children or babies in particular, you will begin to notice an amazing ability to communicate with your children’s spirit. When we are born, our spirit is highly engaged, and it tends to become gradually disengaged as it is systematically ignored and given the consistent message year after year “you are not valued here”. So, as parents, when our spirit becomes engaged, we will find an ability developing that allows us to communicate with our children, because our spirit will reach out to theirs. We may not be aware of all the communication that takes place, but we will begin to see the results. Spiritually engaged children are amazing to raise.

The next area is our work, school, college or career. As our spirit comes to the front more and more, we will begin to become aware of the spiritual character of the organisations that we belong to and the spiritual context that we are operating in. This is a massive area, and the subject for a whole book, but for now, it is enough to point out that our spirit will begin to bring things to our attention, and do things in our work situation that will have a transformational effect on ourselves and how we function within the organisation. Many of the organisations we belong to are sick, and our spirit is able to do small but significant things, that can bring healing, provided of course that we also take time to develop our spiritual connection to God. What I can say, is that this will transform our “daily grind” into a spiritually fulfilling and challenging experience.

The final area concerns the environment, or nature. It is a tragedy that so much of Christianity is hostile towards nature. It is important to remember here that God designed our spirit for the earth, and He created the earth for us. This means we are designed to have a special relationship with nature and to gain great joy from it, as well as to put something back into it. There is so much of God’s life deposited in the world around us, in the trees, in special places of land, in bodies of water, that we do not see. These deposits are invitations to transform our environment - and our spirit has a huge amount of ability in this area. Because it was designed for the earth, its abilities are oriented towards transforming the earth. Also, when Jesus taught us to pray ‘Your will be done on earth as in Heaven’, He was not just talking about people. There is a very specific verse that speaks to this

Rom 8:20-21 - For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God

Next Steps

While this is the end of this short book, it is only the beginning of a great journey into the mystery of God. And how far we want to go is completely up to us as individuals. Some people will always want to go further than others, and my message to those people is that there are literally no limits to how far you can go - the only limit is you. History is full of people who have developed their spirit to the extent where single individuals have transformed entire provinces and sometimes nations for centuries. At the same time, that will not be for everybody, not everyone is that driven or designed that way. That is totally OK. It is my experience that any work we do in this area delivers vast returns. And it is not a race or a competition.

All that remains is to wish on you every blessing on this journey to unlock and develop the potential that God has put in your amazing spirit.