Kidney Health & Dialysis Journey

Your Kidneys Are in the Bible

What Scripture Really Says About Your Gut, Your Bones, Your Breath — and Where the Soul Is Felt

A Teaching by Pastor Nicole Washington

Part One: The Feeling Under the Breastbone

Let me start with something personal, and a little strange, and I'm going to tell it plain because I think a lot of people have felt it and never had words for it.

For years, whenever I would get in the pulpit and preach hard, I would feel it in the center of my chest. Not my stomach. Not my heart exactly. Right underneath the breastbone, in that hollow spot between the chest and the stomach. And afterward I'd feel a kind of exhaustion right there, in that one place.

And it wasn't only preaching. There were times I'd pray in the Spirit for ten, twelve hours, and I'd feel that same tiredness in that same spot. And then there were other times, times I wasn't preaching or praying at all, when I'd feel something in that place and just have a knowing. That something was going on. That something wasn't right. That something was about to happen.

Now I'm not going to stand here and tell you I've located the soul. Nobody can do that. But I started asking a question, and it sent me into the Word, and what I found there absolutely amazed me, and I think it's going to amaze you.

Where does the Bible say we feel the things of God? And why does it keep pointing at the middle of the body?

The Verse That Stopped Me

John chapter 7. Jesus stood up on the last day of the feast and cried out, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

Out of his belly. The Greek word there is koilia, and it means the innermost cavity, the hollow inside, the gut. Not the head. Not even the heart. The belly. That deep middle place.

And then look at the very next verse, because John doesn't leave us guessing. He says, but this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive. Jesus located the outflow of the Holy Spirit in the middle of the human body — that deep interior place, right about where I've felt it my whole preaching life. And when I saw that, I thought, wait a minute. This isn't just me. The Lord Himself talked about this. So I went looking for what else Scripture says about the human body, and church, it is everywhere.

Part Two: The Gallery of Organs

Here's what I discovered, and here's the pattern that changes how you read your Bible. Hebrew almost never names an abstract emotion the way we do. Hebrew names a body part and lets the body carry the meaning. Where we would say I feel compassion, Hebrew says something about an organ. Let me walk you through the gallery, and get ready, because some of these are going to preach all by themselves.

The Womb, and the Compassion of God

This might be the most beautiful thing in all of Scripture, and most believers have never heard it. The Hebrew word for womb is rechem. And the Hebrew word for compassion and mercy, rachamim, comes from that exact same root. Compassion is womb-word. It is the ache a mother's body has for what came out of it.

Now go to Exodus 34:6, where God declares His own name to Moses. The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth. That word merciful is built on the word for womb. Isaiah 49 makes it explicit. God says, can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. God is saying, you know that ache? That's the closest thing on earth to how I feel about you, and mine is stronger.

The Nostrils, and Why God Is Slow to Anger

In that same verse, Exodus 34:6, God says He is slow to anger. In Hebrew that phrase is erek appayim, and it literally means long of nostrils. Because in Hebrew, anger is pictured as the nose — the flare of the nostrils, the hot snort of a person about to lose their temper. So a short-nosed person is quick-tempered. But God says of Himself, I am long of nostrils. It takes a long, long way for the heat to travel in Me.

And here's what makes it holy. That same word for nostrils, aph, is the very place God breathed into in Genesis 2:7, when He breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life. The same place He gave you life is the place He describes as taking a long, long time to burn hot. That's a merciful God describing His own patience in the language of a body.

The Liver, the Heaviest Grief

In Lamentations 2:11, the prophet is watching his city destroyed, and the King James says, my liver is poured upon the earth. He is saying his grief is so violent that his insides have spilled out on the ground. And here's the part that will preach: the Hebrew word for liver, kaved, comes from a root meaning heavy. And the Hebrew word for glory, kavod, comes from that same root. Weight and worth. Glory is heaviness. Grief is heavy, and so is glory.

The Bones, the Deepest Structure

David said in Psalm 32, when I kept silent, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. Unconfessed sin didn't just bother his feelings — it aged his bones. Proverbs 17:22 says a merry heart does good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones. And the most tender one of all: Psalm 51, David after his great failure, praying, make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. He's asking God to make his broken bones dance. He's asking to be healed at the structural level, where the damage really went.

The Throat, and Your Soul

The Hebrew word translated soul more than seven hundred times in your Bible is nephesh. And the root meaning of nephesh is throat — that narrow passage where breath goes in and food goes down. So when Psalm 42 says my soul thirsteth for God, for the living God, that is not a poetic abstraction. It's a picture of a dry throat crying out for water. Which means when the Bible says your soul thirsts, it's saying you have a hunger built into you at the level of your throat, and only God can fill it. That's the same thing Jesus was saying in John 7. If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.

The Bowels, the Churning Mercy

In both Hebrew and Greek, the deepest compassion and the deepest distress land in the bowels. Lamentations 1:20 says, my bowels are troubled. Paul tells the Colossians to put on bowels of mercies. And in the Gospels, when it says Jesus was moved with compassion, the Greek word is splanchnizomai, built from splanchna, the inward parts — it means His insides churned. So when Jesus saw the crowds and was moved with compassion, that is a gut turning over. The Son of God felt the hurting of people in His middle.

And there are more. Job says God poured out his gall upon the ground, and gall is bitterness itself. Hebrews 4:12 says the Word of God is sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, joints and marrow — the deepest layer there is, inside the bone inside the body. And of course Leviticus 17:11, the life of the flesh is in the blood. The Bible puts life itself in an organ system, and then Jesus poured that very thing out for us.

Part Three: So Where Is the Soul?

Now let me answer the question honestly, because I promised you honesty and not hype.

What Scripture Does Not Say

Nowhere does the Bible teach that your soul is stored in an organ like a battery in a compartment. There is no verse that says the spirit lives in the liver, and if anybody preaches that to you, they're going past what's written. What the Bible is doing is describing where the inner life is felt, not where it is kept. The biblical writers were tremendous observers of human experience, and they noticed exactly what I noticed in that pulpit, and what you have probably noticed too. This stuff registers in the middle of the body. That's not a doctrine of anatomy. That's an honest description of being a human being.

And the Science Doesn't Cheapen It, It Confirms the Observation

There is real physiology right where I've been pointing. Your diaphragm, the big muscle that drives your breathing, anchors right under the breastbone. Preaching hard and praying aloud for ten or twelve hours is sustained athletic work for that muscle, and it gets tired like any other muscle gets tired. Sitting on top of it is a dense cluster of nerves people used to call the solar plexus. And the gut wall itself holds hundreds of millions of nerve cells, wired to the brain by the vagus nerve. So that region genuinely is a switchboard between your body and your emotions. Gut feeling is not a phrase somebody made up. Now hear me — that does not explain away anything spiritual. It tells you that when God made a body to house a spirit, He wired it so that the deep things register in the deep places. The physical and the spiritual are not enemies. God made both, and He fit them together on purpose.

And What About the Knowing?

Now what about that knowing? The sense that something isn't right, something's about to happen? I want to be careful here. That knowing is not located anywhere anatomically, and I would not build a doctrine out of a sensation. Romans 8:16 says the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. Witness. Not sensation. The Spirit testifies to your spirit. So the feeling in your middle may be how you notice it. It is not the thing itself. Anything you believe the Spirit is saying should always be tested by the Word, and confirmed by wise counsel, and lived out in humility. First John says test the spirits. Feelings are servants. They make terrible masters.

Why God Did It This Way

Because God did not give us a faith for disembodied spirits. He gave it to people with bodies. He made you out of dust and breathed into your nostrils. He described His own mercy with the word for a womb, and His own patience with the word for a nose. And then, when it came time to save us, He did not send a concept. John 1:14 says the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. God took on a body. He got hungry. He got tired. He wept real tears, and His insides churned when He saw hurting people. He bled from a real body on a real cross. And He did not stay a spirit afterward either — He rose in a body, and 1 Corinthians 15 promises you a resurrection body too.

What God Was Teaching Me

God was teaching me that my body is not a costume my soul is wearing. It is part of what He made, part of what He redeemed, and part of what He is going to raise up. He was showing me that the deep things register in the deep places by design, not by accident. And He was reminding me that the next time I feel something in that deep middle place, I don't need to feel foolish about it, and I don't need to build a religion on it either — I just need to know the God who made me knows exactly how He wired me.

For Your Study

Scripture References

John 7:37-39 — Out of his belly (koilia) shall flow rivers of living water; this He spoke of the Spirit.
Genesis 2:7 — God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.
Exodus 34:6 — Merciful (womb-word) and slow to anger (long of nostrils).
Isaiah 49:15 — Can a woman forget the son of her womb? Yet will I not forget you.
Psalm 42:1-2 — My soul (nephesh, throat) thirsts for God.
Psalm 51:8 — That the bones which You have broken may rejoice.
Lamentations 2:11 — My liver is poured upon the earth.
Colossians 3:12 — Put on bowels of mercies.
Hebrews 4:12 — Dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow.
Romans 8:16 — The Spirit bears witness with our spirit.
Romans 12:1 — Present your bodies a living sacrifice.
John 1:14 — The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.

Discussion Questions

Have you ever felt something spiritual in a physical place in your body? Where, and when?
Jesus said rivers would flow out of the belly. Why do you think He located it there instead of the head or the heart?
God's mercy is described with the word for a womb. How does that change how you picture His compassion for you?
"Slow to anger" means "long of nostrils." What does that picture teach you about God's patience with you?
Why does it matter that Scripture describes where the inner life is FELT, not where the soul is KEPT?
The teaching says feelings are servants but terrible masters. How do you test what you sense against the Word?
God took on a body, rose in a body, and promises you one. What does that say about how you treat your body now?

A Prayer

Father, thank You that You made me with a body, and that You were not embarrassed to talk about it. Thank You that Your mercy toward me is described with the tenderness of a womb, and Your patience with me takes a long, long way to burn hot. Let rivers of living water flow out of my innermost being. Fill the deep places in me that only You can reach. Where my bones are broken, make them rejoice. Where my soul is thirsty, be my water. Where my insides churn for hurting people, let that be Your compassion in me. Teach me to test what I sense by Your Word, and to walk in humility with what You show me. I present my body to You, a living sacrifice. All of me. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Declarations

I declare: God made my body, and He is not embarrassed by it.
I declare: His mercy toward me has the tenderness of a womb.
I declare: He is long of nostrils toward me; His patience runs deep.
I declare: Out of my innermost being flow rivers of living water.
I declare: My soul thirsts for God, and only He can satisfy it.
I declare: The Spirit bears witness with my spirit, and I test all things by the Word.
I declare: The Word became flesh to come and get me, and I present my body to Him.

A note of care: this teaching celebrates the way God wired body and spirit together, but a physical sensation is never a substitute for medical attention. If you regularly feel something unusual in your chest or anywhere in your body, please mention it to your doctor, not because anything is necessarily wrong, but because you deserve peace of mind and good care. And always test what you sense spiritually against the Word of God and wise counsel.

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