Well, it's the end of another week on things unseen, and we've spent these few minutes each day this week reflecting on what I've called soul shapes.

It wouldn't surprise me if this week some of us have either thought or heard words like this.

Something seems to have bent him out of shape today.

It may be because they're irritated and irritating or they're moody and uncommunicative.

That's obvious.

But what isn't so obvious about this being bent out of shape

is why it's happened. We see the effects, but we don't always know the reason, the cause.

And that's what I mean by a person's soul shape, the inner distortion that takes place invisibly

in our hearts, that manifests itself either quickly or slowly, in patterns of life that

are unchrist-like.

Earlier in the week, I mentioned how helpful something I read in Robert Murray McShane's diary

has been to me.

The seeds of every known

sin are in my heart. But at the same time, as we've noticed, where individuals and sinful

distortions manifest themselves in particular ways, in particular people. We've a common disease,

the same basic distortion, but it shapes itself individually.

When I was growing up, toothpaste used to come in metallic-type tubes,

and sometimes little nicks or holes would appear, and as you squeeze the toothpaste,

instead of it coming out the mouth of the tube, it would come out one of these little

knicks in the side.

And then when you put your finger on that nick to try to prevent the toothpaste coming

out, whenever you squeezed the tube, the toothpaste seemed to find another little nick from which

...