How to Set Your Soul

Guard your heart will all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life ­– King Solomon

The settings of our souls are of immense importance. Our life – the actions we take, the ways we react or respond to stimuli, and how we see the world around us – depends on this setting. Two questions arise; how did we get our souls set as they are at the moment and how do we completely set it otherwise (or improve its settings)?

The answer to these questions is one – information. The information we have fed our minds with over the years have set us. All our prejudices, perceptions and paradigms come from the information. For example, I discovered while growing up that I had stereotyped ways I thought about different ethnicities in my country. I felt the Yoruba were all dirty, the Ibira were all wicked, the Igbo were all disrespectful and selfish, the Hausa were all power drunk, the Tiv were all promiscuous, the Jaba (my ethnicity) were all drunks, and much more “alls”. It was not until I got into the university and met several young people like me, who were from these ethnicities and far from any of my settings, that I knew something was awfully wrong with my soul. I met young people that completely did not exhibit the traits I attached to their mother-ethnicity.

Why was my soul prejudiced toward them? Information. The information I received while growing up labeled people thus. I no longer wanted these settings and so I decided to re-set my soul with information that redefined me. Now I find that I befriend a person for months without seeking to know his or her ethnicity or ever caring to categorize people based on that.

It is possible to be wrongly set in different aspects of your life – family, work, or church – and to get yourself straight you must reset. A reset of the soul begins with an open mind. You must accept that you are a work in progress and inner change is the only permanent thing. If you entertain the possibility that you have no other improvements to make you will remain wrongly set.

In addition nothing does a more complete work in setting your soul in the right way like the word of God. Newspapers, social media, entertainment will stimulate you for a moment but the word of God will transform you inside first and create a change outside.