Shalom is the idea of wholeness. When God created the world, he created it with a certain internal logic, a structural integrity, where every part flowed into every other part in perfect harmony. When sin entered the world, it threw a giant monkey wrench into the whole system, and that’s why brokenness is now fundamental to the human experience.
So really when we pursue so many of the things that we pursue in our lives, whether they be success, wealth, love, entertainment, or connection, really what we’re searching for is wholeness. We want all the broken pieces of our lives to feel like they’re fitting together again. We just aren’t sure how to get there. And that’s because we often attempt to construct wholeness by broken means.
Fourth century theologian Saint Augustine talked about it like this. When we don’t know how to address our sin and brokenness, it’s like our souls are turning in on themselves.
Think of someone who’s spine is completely curved in. They have no range of motion. They live in constant pain unless they receive intensive treatment. It’s like the deeper we look within ourselves to try and find wholeness within ourselves, the more the spine of our soul begins to curve in on itself. If we do it for long enough, we end up becoming hardly recognizable as human.
Yet this is what we do. We think, “I need more self-care. I need to hit my next milestone achievement. I need some form of entertainment or pleasure that helps me to numb the existential dread.” And that’s exactly what leads us into our sin patterns, whether it’s greed, selfishness, a lack of empathy, promiscuity, substance abuse, envy, outburst of anger, or whatever it is you struggle with.
The sins you struggle with are nothing more than an ill-formed method of soothing your existential dread by allowing your soul to turn in on itself. But it’s only leading us into further pain and emptiness.
What having your mind set on the Spirit teaches you to do is to begin to look outward and upward. But what does “setting your mind on the Spirit” mean? That feels like esoteric language. Well, the way the Holy Spirit works and functions is that he lives in obedience to God the Father and in selfless service to others. And that’s where we begin to discover our own wholeness.
That doesn’t mean that we do away with self-awareness or even self-care. In fact, in our journey to be more surrendered to God and loving in service toward others, it will require us to tend to and discipline out the unhealthy parts of ourselves.
But as you are confronted with the brokenness in your life, invite Jesus to show you how he is calling you into a posture of surrender to his will and an ethic of selflessness toward others. That’s where you’ll start to become the person God intended you to be—the whole person he intended you to be.
That sounds so simple. But it’s all the stuff that we don’t want to do. And that’s indicative of how sick we really are. We keep drinking the poison, hoping that maybe this time it’ll be the cure.
In fact, we’re so stuck in that, that we can’t help but continue to do it apart from someone compelling us in another direction. We need a power not our own.
2. We Can Experience The Good Life In Jesus By Learning To Rely On The Holy Spirit.
You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (Romans 8:9-13)
