Relationships That Work

"... be of one mind, united in thought & purpose."

1 Corinthians 1:10b

how big is a man's soul?

Geoffrey Bull, missionary to the Tibetans at the time of Mao's long march was talking to a Tibetan farmer one night:

Suddenly the old fellow turned to me and murmured half confidentially: "I want to ask you a question, I somehow don't like asking those lama fellows.  Do you think you can answer me?" Without waiting for my reply he went on, speaking with increasing seriousness.  At last it came.  "How big is a man's soul?" he said quietly.  I looked into the fire and then into his worn and quizzical face.  "A soul," I replied, "is measured like the wind, not by its length and breadth, or even its height, but by its power."  Only as a soul is linked with the Eternal Spirit of the living and True God can it grow to any size.  How often I had thought of that arresting phrase, "Hell is no vastness, it is full of little rotting souls."  I suppose if we viewed the lake of fire materially, it would be no bigger than a pinhead and yet able to contain all the millions who have shrivelled themselves in alienation from their Creator and Redeemer. Eventually we broke up.  The ploughing and the sowing were not easy.  I wondered just how much the old chap understood.  I wondered, too, just how big my own soul might really be.

An Excerpt from: When Iron Gates Yield
By Geoffrey T. Bull

Moody Press Chicago