He Satisfies My Soul by Dr. Paul Brand (2008)

He Satisfies My Soul by Paul Brand (2008) Originally published as God’s Forever Feast (1993)

I’ve long been a fan of Paul Brand, ever since I first read Fearfully and Wonderfully Made, a book that illustrates the Christian life by basically dissecting the living human body. This book is similar, and yet it broadens his illustrations beyond the human body to basic human needs like food and water and the natural world all around us. As a doctor, he provides insights that are unique and educational; as a Christian, he uses these insights to teach us more about ourselves and our relationship to the Body of Christ and to Christ our Head.

Like with Brand’s other works, He Satisfies My Soul would likely appeal best to those from the schools of science, but his creativity and attention to detail pleases those of us from the schools of arts as well. Although known for his work with leprosy patients and the reconstruction of hands, he also proves himself a master of observation in general. Whether it’s how our noses work or the dangers of soil erosion, Dr. Paul Brand has a little to say about a lot of things, and he does so with such humility.

Have I praised the guy enough? Not sure if I can. He’s one of my favorite authors, and I know that Phillip Yancey certainly helped in that regard. It’s Yancey who writes in the Foreword that Dr. Brand’s subjects of conversation covered such a wide spectrum that not everything could make it into the three books they published together. This book, then, includes some of the snippets that remained. It’s a sort of “table talk” like what Martin Luther once produced, and how wonderful to sit at feast with Dr. Brand and to hear his perspective on the world. Just yesterday I read an article by Brett and Kate McKay about the value of “The Cabinet of Invisible Counselors”, and I’m sure that Dr. Paul Brand would make it onto mine.

Summary of He Satisfies My Soul

This book is so filled with wise anecdotes and illustrations, I’d be hard-pressed to share them all. Instead, I’d like to share info about each chapter with some quotations included. Enjoy.

Chapter 1, “And So We Thank the Lord” (hunger as a catelyst for flavor and joy): “Not only do the heavens proclaim His glory, but so do the seed and soil, the trees and their fruit.” (19)
Chapter 2, “Hunger is the best sauce in the world” (hunger and diet): Here he compares the quoting of encouraging Bible verses to the pleasure of a sugar cookie, nice but not enough. Instead, we also need to “protein” of deep study, particularly the context of those passages. (30)
Chapter 3, “Enticing Flavors, Tantalizing Aromas” (flavors and smells): Flavor comes not just from our taste buds, but also our olfactory cells. “Just as it’s possible to awaken someone’s physical appetite, so it is with the spiritual appetite. God calls you and me to be fragrant aromas of Him and to entice others to ‘taste of the goodness of the Lord.'” (34)
Chapter 4, “The Ultimate Thirst-Quencher” (water and thirst)
Chapter 5, “The Good Earth” (death, soil, erosion): “There is something triumphant about the death of a saint. Dust to dust—yes, but also spirit leaping up to report to God about the completion of the great adventure by which one or two hundred pounds of mud have been inspired—inbreathed—to be active and creative in God’s service. That transformed mud and clay body has been the messenger of God and the instrument of His love for many years. Hallelujah! God has done it again! He has allowed a mass of lifeless earth to come to life and live and breathe and thnk and love for years and years of creative activity.” (62) “It is one of the great tragedies of all time, and little is being done to halt the loss. It is part of a pattern of mindless diregard for God’s earth. We who claim to serve the Creator should be asking ourselves whether we are being good stewards of His great gifts.” (70)
Chapter 6, “Fruit for All Seasons” (plants, pollution, fruit): He shares the story of how one medical officer in a Japanese POW camp in Malaysia fought his fellow-prisoner’s dyserntary. They suffered because they had only the water of a filthy swamp to drink. He restored their bodily fluids by rigging up Ivs from the coconut fruit which grew from those same filthy swamps. The trees had filtered out the bad to create healthy fruit, so he asks, “What kind of fruit are you?” (84-88)
Chapter 7, “Milk: the Perfect Food” (milk, nutrition): “Not all churches insist on special classes for would-be members. I think this is a mistake. The churches that select their best teachers and most loving and understanding members to burture newborn Christians are the ones that will never lack for leaders in days to come.” (93)
Chapter 8, “No More Free Lunch” (weening away from the easy life)
Chapter 9, “Unwashed Hands” (purity and contamination)
Chapter 10, “A Banquet of Variety” (vitamins and waste-disposal)
Chapter 11, “The Guardians of the Gate” (teeth, tongue, esophagus): He teaches how we must prepare to stand against false doctrines.
Chapter 12, “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread” (birds, provision): “When Jesus said that God fed the birds, He wasn’t carrying around a tray of bird seed…God, as creator and provider for all of life, has provided each of His species with their own way of obtaining food…He is the source of their wisdom, instinct, and skill…God doesn’t intervene on an individual basis to save the life of a bird…Neither does He usually intervene to save the life of a human being. We die—and this mreans more to God, because men and women carry His image. Even so, God rarely acts directly to change His own physical laws in order to make life easier for one of His children.” (157-158) “Our little missions agency felt put down when others asked, ‘Are your missionaries paid, or do they live by faith?’ We felt that all support came from God’s people and that faith was involved whether the mission asked for support directly or simply prayed that God would provide it.” (161)
Chapter 13, “It Tastes Better if It’s Shared” (resources): This reminds me of a teacher who once described his dinner table as “the nin-foot lectern”, because it’s such a great place for people to gather over food for the sake of conversation and edification.
Chapter 14, “The Celebration of Self-Discipline” (fasting and discipline): “Most physicians, when they consider health and sickness, think only of the roles of the body and the mind: the soma and the psyche. They practice psychosomatic medicine. Many Chrisitans, when they consider health and sickness, speak only about the body and the spirit. They may see psychological ills as manifestations of sin—or at least lack of faith. Both camps have only two-thirds of the truth. The body is the palpable structure that houses the brain, the seat of the mind. It is not possible to pin down an anatomic location for the spirit, but it is central to all the rest.” (178)
Chapter 15, “A Little Leaven”: These final three chapters all deal with important aspects of communion, and pastors would do well to incorporate these lessons and insights into their next communion services.
Chapter 16, “The Lord’s Supper: The Bread”
Chapter 17, “The Lord’s Supper: The Wine”
Chapter 18, “The Lord’s Breakfast” (renewal)

I absolutely enjoyed this book, and I know you will as well, as long as you’ve got a single curious bone in your body.