Spirit of the Grieved
“And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.” Ephesians 4:30.
Grieving. It’s something we all do. It is not exclusive to a particular archetype, character, individual, or circumstance but rather inclusive, involving all and being felt by everyone, primarily and most incomprehensibly by God. There are many scriptures about grieving the spirit, and almost all of them, if not all, are stated in context to the God of hope, the God of love—our God, the Lord all mighty. I find this unfathomable because God, who is exalted above all, can be distressed and sad. I suppose this is not surprising when those who cause such grief are us—we who, through our actions, can cause grief or someone to grieve—are in heaviness and sorrow.
Speaking, we make God feel sorry for us.
Still, despite my inability to intellectually grasp God’s grief, I find it easy to take hold of it spiritually, for I have felt the same, and now I feel it especially.
The Holy Ghost, through our beloved brother, the apostle Paul, writes, “For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.” We are fragile creatures, us human beings, constantly making mistakes and doing that which our flesh wants us to do and, in simple terms, letting God down.
Our sins have bled Christ dry; our arrogance has frustrated, even hindered, the spirit; our lack of discipline distresses Him. When thinking about this, I am reminded of myself as a child who, after doing something I shouldn’t have done, having known better but choosing to do it anyway, was not always told by my parents how angry they were, but rather, to a more cutting end, how disappointed they were.
This was and is a terrible feeling.
As awful as it was to have my Mom and Dad mad at me, it was far worse to have them disappointed, saddened, distressed, and grieved. It was as though the punishment inflicted on me was enough, if not more than enough, to get the message across, encouraging change.
God is like this with us, disappointed in our lack of discipline and abundance of arrogance that encourages us to make mistakes rather than overcome them. I am guilty of this the same as any; I thank God that He is a One of mercy and forgiveness. He takes away the guilt we bear in our self-inflicted punishment, produced by our missteps and backslidings, withholding the reward attained through victory in our walk with Him forward. The same grievance that moved God upon the children of Israel who knew God and His ways and still sinned, finding themselves in times of great sorrow, is present today, ready to make change for the betterment and progression that leads us to perfection.
Again, I find myself thinking about the word ‘children.’ The Children of Israel: remembering myself as a child, and when I was a child, I did childish things, but as a man, I put them away—I do what the son of man did. We are no longer children, physically. Time has ensured this, running through us, aging our mortal coil, and taking us to an expected, unavoidable, ever-nearing end. We are grown men and women, His children by name and identification, known as sons and daughters of God, sent to do a work that can only be done in our limited time and mortality, but instead of doing what we have been sent to do, we do that which we were not. Instead of using our gifts for the edification of the body of Christ, we hoard them selfishly and let them rot, collecting dust as we mold from the inside out, turning rotten and eventually to dust as we are told we will go.
We sadden God when we do those things, acting as ungodly thieves who grow gluttonous on God’s food—His word and revelation—harboring it for ourselves in surplus. Our gifts are for the people, and if we are as we claim, which is a collective that is the body, then we must come together to do God’s will. In Christ, we are more than conquerors—killers of the enemy, who are the principalities that plague us. However, if we give into sin, then we will not live nor produce life but die and be grieved. Yea, if we can die to ourselves, we are born again, walking in perfection.
My grievance is my inability to place my emotions and thoughts aside, not letting the backslidings of my brothers cause me to backslide. Instead, I would pray for my brother or sister, applying the same mercy and love God applied to me when I did the same to Him. If I am to judge, then by that same standard, I am judged and weighed in the balance and found wanting, for I want that which God does not desire to give rather than choose that which God has given. Instead of using my gifts, I place them to the side, listing to the devil's deceptions, focusing on a gift that, though God-given and soon to produce fruits, will come to fruition in His time.
I pray I will not sit, letting the ripened fruits rot while I wait for the unripened.
With this revelation, I encourage you, my people, to no longer act as children but as men and women of God, warriors in the midst of and overcomers of the adversary. Let us be filled with the Spirit of God, the Holy Ghost, who handles the spirit of the grieved, having dealt with the grief we have given Him before and is therefore present to carry us through our own.
Let us do as He has done for us, for all our brothers and sisters, extending the thought to go as far as to say that we would do it, even for our sakes.
