Day 3074 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.

1 Thessalonians 5:19 NIV

When a people agree to always run from pain they risk rejecting the healing that's only found on the other side of it.

You see, the initial workings of the Holy Spirit force us to consider our past prisons which were made from then present predicaments we didn’t realize we had the responsibility to handle properly. We're asked to acknowledge and admit our many errors and the wayward mindsets which led us to their making. The process demands hearts not partially surrendered but so entirely humbled that they eagerly confess every possible failure so that none are left as hidden hassles saved for a surprise stumble along a path we know we'll not be able to walk well.

And it's all of this heaviness which causes many to do exactly as we're told not to do in this verse from Paul's letter to the church in Thessalonica. Do not quench the Spirit, even though it might well feel like that Spirit is drowning us with guilt and shame and regret and remorse and a kind of sorrow we'd always done all we could to avoid having to wade through. Do not give in to that voice screaming inside begging this work to cease.

Because, though we'll first loathe every crushing step taken away from who we've been and all we've shamefully done as a result, freedom can only be appreciated when we know all from which we've been set free.

But so often we hold to this idea that sin is a relatively minuscule kind of mistake that carries with it no real danger, let alone potential demise. We've bought that theory from a world working overtime to remain convinced that none of us have really done anything deserving the death we've come to see as only the end of life and all the enjoyment we're so used to having within it.

And as those ideas root deeper into already deceitful hearts, those hearts harden to everything which attempts to creep in through the cracks we'd never agree we have hidden inside. This hardening eventually inspires only a deepened resolve to reject every voice telling us anything we know we can't bear to hear as it will confront the lies that have long made our complacency in the dark seem a reasonable choice to continue making.

Thus, we exist among a society that's quenched the Spirit so vastly that many have no interest in even the thought of humility as it's simply no longer a concern anymore.

But if we want more than what we see, more than what we've become, more than what we've been, well then we cannot afford to adopt that same mindset because it's only through the Spirit that we've any chance of finding the narrow path which leads to life from the death we've always lived, let alone following that path through the tumult that's still to come in the days and weeks just ahead.

Indeed, while many if not most will run from the work the Spirit begins as it does bring a bit of misery at the beginning, if we do the same, we'll only stay the same.

That's why God sent us His Holy Spirit. It's not as most would assume, this idea that He's done so as a way of reminding us of all we've done wrong. It's not His getting back at us for going against Him for so long. It is not merely to force us to look upon the many mistakes we've made but to help us finally see them for the mistakes they are so that we can in turn turn from those ways and seek instead His purpose which has always been for our good.

This is literally a Jeremiah 29:11 moment that we all get to experience for ourselves. That verse is arguably the one most well known for being taken out of context. It's used by many as this validation of their entitled assumption that life will always be as perfect and peaceful as they wish it to be. But they fail to accept the context in which the Israelites were told that God's plans were to prosper them and not to harm them, to give them hope and a future.

Why would they need hope? Well, because the context teaches us what they were facing, and hope was likely among the last things they could readily find. Why a future toward which they could look forward? Because right in front of them what a predicament they weren't looking forward to experiencing. Why the reminder that this God who'd already been good to them had plans for something other than harm?

Because they were heading into harm's way and would likely struggle to remember the good He had done up to that point as the skies clouded and the sun stopped shining and all their hopes and dreams and efforts suddenly came to a violent end as they were led from their homes into captivity in a place they'd not known, a place not their own.

See, that's what the Holy Spirit does to us and provides for us throughout. He leads us into a place where we will be confronted with discomfort. He drags us from our cozy little hideouts out into the light where all our misdeeds are laid bare before God. He hurts our pride through the pointing out of every reason we've none remaining. He demands our eyes look upon what we've done that led up to this moment wherein we must now leave everything we've always known behind in exchange for a chance to change everything we never wanted to change.

That's why so many balk at the workings of the Holy Spirit. They're painful. Embarrassing. Filled with intense reminders of every stupid decision we've ever made, every cross word we've ever said, every single wrong step ever taken down every wrong path we'd all but convinced ourselves wasn't all that bad. The Holy Spirit rips the veil from our eyes and forces us to look at what we've become so that we can understand that freedom isn't what we've had, but what we still need to find.

I'll be the first to admit just how miserable this process is, and to say that it's one that doesn't really let up. You see, there's always something we'll have said or done for which we need to be corrected and rebuked and reminded that that's not who we're called to be. Every single day spent following this path in need of endless humility will bring a new lesson we don't really want to have to learn.

But if we're not learning then we're not growing. And just like every other thing that grows, we need the rain, the pruning, the tending of the One who knows how best to grow us into something actually useful for once.

And that's why we can't quench the Spirit. Because without that help, without that encouragement, without that voice demanding we look at the many messes we've made and will make, we'd never do anything more than just enough to stay the same. But sanctification will not accept that, because like it or not, God has always wanted better for us than the things we've settled for thinking were best. And unlike us, He will not settle.

That's what we learn in Hebrews 12:6. "The Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son." If we truly want to be His children, His servants, His people, we'd better learn to appreciate His discipline understanding that it's done not to make us feel bad but to instill the accountability that causes us to do better. It's not to remind us of our guilt but to help us learn to stop doing the stupid things that leave us feeling guilty.

And that's the misunderstanding that's led to pretty much every problem we're facing today.

The entire world despises God and His truth and His Word and His Son and His Spirit, all because all the above refuse to let us stay in our pits of shame and selfishness and self-righteousness and self-confidence and self-enslavement and self-delusion and self-confusion. But we've learned to only see the pain it causes to the pride we've learned to worship. And so we've chosen this idea that tells us that if it hurts, if it embarrasses, if it causes any sort of discomfort, then it's not coming from a place of love.

Because this world knows nothing of the kind of love that God has for all of us, as instead of this world's version that wants only happiness for everyone even if it means hunting for damnation, God wants salvation from the things we've learned by learning to live from a world that has chosen to live as if He's not there.

And He sends forth His Spirit ripping into the hearts and minds and lives of everyone who asks Him finally for the help they need to leave behind the shame and regret, the help they've never managed to find in anyone or anywhere else. But we can't expect Him to do as the world does. Can't expect Him to love as the world loves. We cannot expect Him to coddle us as we so clearly have all this time.

If we want something different, something better, then we have to do something new. The opposite is simply insanity.

Friends, I know the guilt that comes from reliving the many foolish missteps we've taken down all those wrong paths we've chosen. I know the misery of muddling through the murky mire churned up by the Spirit refusing to let us ignore the lessons we've not wanted to learn. I understand the pain of it all, truly. It's something that becomes a daily grind through which we have to tread if we're to hope in our being better today than what we were yesterday.

But where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom. And while that seems a strange possibility to minds still likely somewhat convinced that they've found freedom in this opportunity to do as we please as sold by sin's deception, the sheer fact that looking behind us at the mistakes we've made carries with it an unavoidable grappling with guilt proves that we've indeed not been quite so free after all.

Because if we were truly free to do as we please without any possible cost nor consequence, then why would we ever feel bad for anything we've said or done or thought or believed or refused or misunderstood? How would the word 'mistake' even exist if someone at some point didn't realize they were wrong? And how on earth can any of us ever consider that we've done something wrong when all our hearts want is to assume we've always been right?

So you see, the Holy Spirit is working in us through the pains that come with admitting we've not been as perfect as we've long tried to pretend. And in that concession we find the first steps truly taken toward true freedom.

It might hurt for those chains we've learned to love to be broken away link by link. It might hurt to relive the memories we've tried so hard to forget. It might suck more than anything we'd ever rationally choose to endure to go through the process of the repentance only made possible through God's gift of His Spirit. But if we run when it hurts, when it's hard, when we feel guilty and just want that weight of regret to stop rolling in upon us, then we'll have done nothing but slap away the only hand that's ever reached out to save us from the misery we've only ever been able to hope we could ignore.

Do not quench the Spirit. Learn to love the work He does through every miserable reminder it forces you to work through. Not because it's fun but because each step is one in a journey of increasing freedom that you'd have never possibly found if you had to keep coming up with more lies to remain convinced that you were already there.

No, this good work He's began in us will not always feel good. But His purpose lies beyond our feelings. And His promise is waiting right beside it.

#LeaveNoSoulUntold