Hello, good day, and thank you for being here. As we continue through mid-September, experiencing drought and heat, I will get right to my mission…

Although most are familiar with the term “writer’s block,” I will begin with AI’s (Artificial Intelligence) definition and then move to a deeper understanding of it.

Writer’s block is a temporary psychological condition or creative slowdown that prevents a writer from producing new work or progressing with a piece of writing. Common causes: Perfectionism, Performance anxiety, Stress and burnout, or Procrastination.

Now I will tell you about an experience I recently had that exposed another cause for this condition from a Holy Spirit perspective.

As the Lord would have it (He never wastes a second of our time with Him), after some time praising Him in song, a YouTube title caught my interest. The title is “The Holy Spirit is More Sensitive Than You Think,” with Dr RT Kendall in a podcast with Preston Morrison on the Leader’s Cut. Dr Kendall is 91 years old at the time of this Podcast last month. To say this man is “well preserved” is an understatement, for certain. 😊

The podcast is an hour-long episode, full of wisdom from his walking and fellowshipping with the Lord for seventy-plus years. His question was, “What if the easiest thing in the world to do is grieve the Holy Spirit- and the hardest thing in the world is to keep from it?” Wow! Tough question, right?  The podcast revealed something I was doing that needed correction to prevent “writer’s block,” and it had everything to do with grieving the Holy Spirit. Another question: “Do you know what grieves him?” Dr Kendall says finding that out will change everything. I say finding it out, and with His help, correction changes everything. Grieving the Holy Spirit can be very condemning, but His conviction is for correction, never condemnation. You will see this in his stories.

In Dr Kendall’s story, he talked about an incident that brought about his inability to write a sermon. I will give you a condensed version of the cause of his “writer’s block” and his lesson in it. I paraphrased where needed and italicized what Dr Kendall and Preston said in the podcast. I added my own understanding of what they said and added some of my own thoughts as I wrote.

Before we go forward to answer his questions about grieving the Holy Spirit, he first began with his testimony of Salvation. God, through the Holy Spirit, revealed to him that he is saved for eternity, not a “mess-up and you lose it” doctrine of men. It is good that he clarifies this in the beginning, because he talks about the dove, the “Holy Spirit,” flying from us. He is not talking about losing our salvation here either, so please don’t mix these up. We keep it in context by focusing on the topic at hand, “grieving” the Holy Spirit.

He uses a story of a couple that perfectly fits the idea of the Holy Spirit flying away. They were a British couple assigned to be missionaries in Israel. They noticed that after being there a while, in the house they had been given, “there was a dove that came to live in the eve of their roof. But they noticed that every time they slammed the door, the dove would fly away. And every time they would get into an argument and start shouting at each other, the dove would fly away. They realized that either the dove would adjust to them, or they would adjust to the dove, as they did not want the dove to fly away forever.

Although the couple’s experience was with a physical bird, they chose to adjust to the dove to keep it in their house. It changed their lives just to keep him there”. There it is…as God reveals much-needed correction (adjustment). How not to grieve the Holy Spirit! Who are the real benefactors and beneficiaries here? We do have a choice, as this couple did, whether to adjust or not. When we adjust to the benefactor, we and those around us are certainly the beneficiaries.

 According to the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit is much the same. Ephesians 4:30 says, “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” (sealed for the day of redemption is eternal salvation). And the very next verse, Eph 4:31 says, “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice”.

Just because we are Christians doesn’t mean the Holy Spirit will adjust to our sinful nature and disobedience to the Word. How can we be transformed into the image of Christ if not by our obedience to the Word of God by the Spirit’s guidance? Do we see why the Holy Spirit will never adjust to us? We would never be transformed into Christlikeness, or better yet, how could we glorify Christ if we consistently cause the Holy Spirit to “fly away”? Again, the benefactor and the beneficiaries I. I hope you see this, as it is the prelude to writer’s block from the Holy Spirit’s perspective. It is a lot, I know, but let’s not stop short!

I must move on to how we avoid grieving the Holy Spirit. There are two main teachings in Dr Kendall’s story.

Total forgiveness and desiring what pleases Him the most:

“Number one is total forgiveness, but grieving the Holy Spirit leads us to this life-changing experience”. He defines spirituality as closing the time gap between sin and repentance. How long does it take you to admit you were wrong? When we begin to say something that is dishonoring to the Lord or the person we are speaking to, we need to stop mid-sentence instead of letting stubbornness and pride hold us back for days, weeks, or for some even years. “Doing this will close the time gap between sin and repentance. This is part of spiritual maturity”. It comes from being in the Word and obeying what He says. This kind of relationship with the Holy Spirit does not expect Him to “adjust” to our ways.

The conversation led to Preston. I quote him: “God said, ‘Preston, I’m helping you understand what grieves me because I am trying to teach you that which most pleases me.”  Talk about life-changing!

We looked at how we grieve the Holy Spirit in the missionaries’ dove in the eve of their house. And in Ephesians 4:30-31, we see the command not to grieve the Holy Spirit and the adjustments that we need to make. We choose!

So here I am again:

As I continue in my effort to complete the valuable lessons in this podcast, I realize it is best to divide this into multiple blogs. Meanwhile, you could benefit by listening, if possible, to Dr Kendall’s conversation with Preston Morrison. (The title is “The Holy Spirit is More Sensitive Than You Think,” with Dr RT Kendall in a YouTube podcast with Preston Morrison on the Leader’s Cut).

Part 2, we will discover how this applies to writer’s block. And go beyond not just wanting the dove to stay, as the Lord said to Preston, “Because I am trying to teach you that which most pleases me.” The benefactor and the beneficiaries.

As usual, I have a story of my own. But for now, if you have benefited from what I have written, please share it with others. I do appreciate your comments when the comments page works. 😊Countless lives have been changed by this 91-year-old saint who is still sharing his story, walking closer with the Holy Spirit, and running the race for the prize. How incredible! Stay with me for his and my upcoming stories, and see if you agree.

God bless and keep you,

Reba