The Five Senses
Most of us were born with five senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. On the other hand some have added other senses such as horse sense, common sense, nonsense, and a sense of humor and good sense. I do suspect that, to a degree, some of these do play a part in our lives. However, the original five God-given senses will be the subject matter of this article. Senses are faculties for receiving impressions or sensations, an awareness or perception that comes through the five organs of the body: sight, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling. These senses can be aroused for any number of reasons. Our senses respond with an intense interest to all sorts of stimuli. There are some of us who are more sensitive to particular stimuli than others. For example a hearing challenged person will be much more responsive to seeing than a person with sight. A sightless person will be more sensitive to sound than a person who can hear. There is also what some term “the “sixth sense” this of course is intuition or intuitive power. Concentrating on and developing any one of our five senses will make each stronger, more receptive and above all, more aware to discern negative or positive situations. Being a seer I am always interested in learning more about the subject of revelation in all its forms. Most recently I heard a teaching about the five senses. One area of that teaching touched upon the fact that we actually have three sets of five senses. In order to comprehend the idea of three sets of senses it’s important to first of all recognize that we are created as triune beings, body, soul and spirit. The body has five physical senses. These senses give us the awareness to interact with everything around us: sight, sound, touch, taste and smell everything in the physical realm these are the feelings we usually depend on in the process of our daily lives.
The five soul senses relate to our memories and how our senses responded or react to experiences or cultural environment in our past. This set of senses is about personal situations and how these memories have played a part in affecting us…how one person’s response to the taste of a particular kind of food may be different than another. For example my response to a cultural food such as old country pierogi is pleasant that brings back good memories of my childhood and family. Someone residing in a different part of the country may have the same good memories concerning chicken gumbo more so than I would. The same can be said for individual differences in response to the smell of flowers. One person’s soul sense may bring up the memory of the death of someone special whereas someone else may have good thoughts of the fragrance of a lilac bush in the middle of springtime. Another personal example is the memory of Vicks vapors rub; this brings to mind the loving touch of my mother comforting me during times of being ill. Another sense is the sense of smell. My first remembrance of Christmas is associated with smelling the aroma of a freshly cut pine tree.
The spiritual senses are last but not least on my list mainly because I believe these are just as or even more important than our natural senses because they are the five senses that help us to form a relationship with God that leads us to participate in the unseen supernatural realm. This relationship is what helps us develop the ability to use the gift of discerning of spirits. This gift is critically important in order for us to know the difference between what is divinely inspired or if what we are seeing, hearing, touching, smelling or tasting is from a malevolent or benevolent source. I lean strongly toward this teaching mainly because no matter what limitations we have concerning the physical senses we are completely able to activate our spiritual senses and experience the spiritual realm. The ultimate purpose is to increase your relationship, communication and understanding of the loving God we choose to serve. God communicates through all five senses as opposed to the natural realm where sight and sound are most commonly used to communicate. We already have spiritual senses. We need to ask God to open the eyes of our hearts and to open our ears that we might see and hear him more clearly and accurately. And Lord, continue to increase and never take for granted our other senses of touch, smell and taste.
Pastor Mary Ann Kotch Dreamlab7 ©2016