Do Not Grieve the Holy Spirit

“Dad, Harrison called and invited me to swim at his house.  Should I go?”

“Of course!”

“But Dad, Peter called and invited me to ride bikes at the trails.  Should I go?”

“Sure, I know you love to ride in the trails.”

“But Dad, should I swim or ride bikes?”

“Son, it’s up to you.  It’s your choice.”

“But I want to do the right thing.”

“Neither one of them is wrong, son.”

“But I want you to tell me: Should I swim or ride bikes?”

“I told you, son, you can choose. Swimming with Harrison will be great, and riding with Peter will be great.  What do you want to do?”

“I want to do what you want me to do. Please tell me your will.”

[Three hours later]

“Son, you’re still here?  Now it’s late; why didn’t you go?”

“Father, you didn’t tell me which one to do?”

.  .  .

If I were this father, I would feel upset, perhaps angry.  But the overwhelming emotion would be a resounding, wrenching sadness.  I didn’t raise my son to be timid or fickle, and I certainly didn’t train him to be fearful or indecisive. After all this time together, how can he not understand how much I love him and want him to live his life to the fullest?  It is as if he doesn’t even know me.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit

~ Paul to the Church at Ephesus, 4:30

I’ve been thinking a good deal about this verse since I wrote my last piece on a companion passage: Do not quench the Spirit. The idea that we can extinguish the movement and actions of the Holy Spirit of God is impossible to imagine — And yet, we can.  However, the idea that my actions can cause The Spirit to grieve is far more unimaginable. How many times have I been like this bound-up boy and grieved The Spirit?

I have an all-too-easy time imagining God being angry with me, disappointed in me, or not speaking to me.  The truth is, I often feel that way.  But the thought of the Spirit of God grieved with me is impossible to consider.  

My thoughts can readily imagine His majesty, power, splendor, and light. My reflections can steadily ponder His glory, wisdom, mercy, and grace.  But grief?  And worse yet, grief caused by me?

Scripture is clear that when Jesus laid aside His Divinity, He put on the fullness of our humanity, which includes our messy emotions.  Isaiah calls Him a man of sorrows.  While looking upon the city of Jerusalem and beholding their unbelief, he was deeply moved and wept.  While standing at the grave of His friend Lazarus and beholding their unbelief, he was deeply moved and wept.  When he prayed in Gethsemane on the night of His arrest, He was in such travail that droplets of blood mingled with his sweat — the first trickle of the water and blood that would soon flow on the cross.

Even still, how can I grieve the Holy Spirit today?  When I embark on a carnal riff, shaking my fist to heaven while thundering my case, it’s easy to envision Him sternly waiting for my tantrum to pass like a robed Judge behind the bench. But like the father of the infantile boy, how often does He grieve at the misshapen character I continually cling to?

Love your neighbor as yourself

~ The Second Most Important Commandment As Stated By Jesus, Mark 12:31

I have openly shared that these past four years have been the most challenging of my life.  When people ask me how they can pray, I quickly say, “Pray for Jill, she has to live with me.” If I am being honest, this supreme command of Christ should be flipped for me:  Love yourself as you love your neighbor.

I love other people well.  It’s me I have a problem with.

When discouragement, despair, and disillusionment set in, the cascade of insults roll off my tongue and into the mirror all too freely. I become Don Rickles without the warmth or the laughs. If I ever heard my son speak of himself the way I can speak of myself, I would be far more saddened than the scenario of swimming or bikes.

Do not fear or be dismayed

~ Deuteronomy 31:8

The Old Testament continually joins “Fear not” with “Be not dismayed.” We confidently remind one another not to be afraid.  In fact, the Bible says, “Do not be afraid” over 70 times.  But how often do we urge someone not to be dismayed?  What does it mean to be dismayed?

Before I learned the Hebrew meaning of dismay, I assumed it was a lesser bedfellow to fear, something like to be discouraged. But this word’s meaning is far more arresting and aptly describes large swathes of my last four years. To be dismayed is a surprisingly troubling description of an even more worrisome condition.

To be dismayed in this context means to be broken, so broken you are shattered — Shattered to the extent you feel your sense of self has been abolished.

Why am I publicly rendering my heart to extract a concentrated essence of these emotions?  When these harsh self-criticisms tumble freely from my lips, it’s not merely because I have an ingrained Italian temper.  I now realize the launch pad for my negative self-talk is far deeper than I thought — And it’s a launch pad the Lord wants to remove from within all of us.

We should always read scripture within its surrounding context, and in the case of do not grieve the Holy Spirit, the preceding and proceeding passages give us more than a clue of what grieves Him:

Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification, according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.

~ Ephesians 4:29-31

While our indecision and inaction may grieve Him, our spoken bitter words indeed grieve him.  

Scripture reveals the power our words have. The Book of James is a master class on our custom-built flamethrowers, also known as the tongue. The tongue is a small fire that can start a course-changing inferno.  It is a tiny rudder able to redirect a massive ship. If we can not tame our tongue, it can be the poison that renders our religion worthless. 

For we all stumble in many ways.  If anyone does not stumble in what he says, then he is a perfect man.

~ James 3:2

James admits we all stumble in countless ways, but we can only be perfect by not speaking careless words.  The charge for me to put away clamor and slander is a poetic punch in the mouth.

Lord, I don’t only want to bite my tongue or tame it.  I invite You to touch that place deep within me from where these flames are launched. May it be that I never grieve you again.

“Hey Dad, I’m going to ride bikes.”

Photo Credit: Holy Spirit Prayer of St. Augustine. Painting by Jen Norton