With effort and practice, we can learn to discern the movement of God’s Spirit in the world, but first we must recognize how the Spirit works within our inner selves. Our temptation is to think we can see the Spirit in the world generally, and particularly in the lives of others, when we have yet to be attuned to our own interior life. A personal and intimate relationship with the Spirit must underlie broader perceptions.
This is why Jesus tells us to pay attention first to what is in our own eye before examining what is in the eye of another person (Matthew 7:1-5). He forbids judging, and we might think that judging refers only to the condemnation of others with regard to their sin. However, judgment, because it involves the wisdom to clarify and see the nature of things, also includes the discernment of what is good.
To judge is to make an assessment by which we note both the good and bad associated with what we are examining. It can lead to approval or disapproval, commendation or condemnation.
To be able to see and praise what is good, including the activity and influence of the Spirit of God, requires a certain degree of wise judgment. Jesus forbids hasty judgment and the examination of others when we have not done our own hard work of introspection under God’s leading.
Only the person who has faced bravely the reality of their own hidden life, with its shadow side, and is practiced in detecting how the Spirit moves skillfully in the obscure places within us, is able to help another with their own inner work.
All such assistance offered to others will naturally be engaged humbly and gently by anyone who has undertaken their own shadow work. However, this work will likely be attempted clumsily, while tainted with pride and harshness, by a person who has not examined themselves already.
And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. John 16:8
Jesus describes to his disciples the work that the promised Spirit will do. To say the Spirit will convict means God’s Spirit corrects, exposes to the light, and makes clear what we do not see or ignore. We are moved to awareness, which is the necessary catalyst of all transformation.
The way the Spirit does this for the world is by coming into each of us individually. The world is not convicted en masse, but particularly according to the need of the soul, its individual heart and spirit.
I must be convicted about what in me is missing the mark (sin), what reflects God’s own goodness (righteousness), and the way in which God declares and discerns all things (judgment).
Lent is particularly a time in the Christian year for us to focus on interior work, and to seek to be more sensitive and aware of how the Spirit moves within each one of us. Accepting conviction is difficult, and often we resist the clarity that the Spirit brings. We can be too ready to excuse and justify our faults, rather than to humbly see where we are falling short.
Hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:5
This necessary spiritual conviction is easier to accept if we have already been made fully aware of God’s love through the initial work of the Spirit. The Spirit brings us into the love of God and the love of God into us! The One who convicts has first entered into us with love.
Love tells us that we are accepted just as we are, and prepares us to welcome any correction. The desire to be united with our Lover urges our surrender. There is nothing to prove, nothing to be done, no worthiness to achieve, but only the joy of simply resting in being loved.