BP 146
I believe some people are specially gifted. I’m not referring here to gifts like intelligence, athleticism, musical ability, or even to what some refer to as being an empath. I’m referring to spiritual-emotional giftings that are probably not seen as gifts by most people. For one reason, I don’t believe they are mentioned directly in the Bible. For another reason, they are rooted in deep pain. Most of us do not look on pain as being a characteristic of a special gift.
What are these spiritual-emotional gifts? (I have mentioned them a time or two in past posts, so I apologize if there is any overlap here.) And why do I think they have a spiritual nature?
I believe one example of a spiritual-emotional gift is what I call a “disordered depression”. Some people with depression are not simply experiencing symptoms of a mental illness. They are simultaneously accessing a deeper reality that others are not gifted to know. I certainly do not think all depression is spiritual-emotional depression, but some occurrences of depression fit this category. I do think that most people who have this gift might be more prone to a depressive nature—or at least prone to episodes of it.
The individuals who experience the spiritual depression I am referring to are gifted with the ability to feel or sense on a deep level that human hearts are fractured, that creation is spiritually groaning, that something is terribly disordered with the current reality. This dark, heavy depression is a gift because most people are not aware of this spiritual-emotional reality. It is only discerned by a few.
Sure, many people will experience the universal spiritual groaning on the periphery of their souls, but not to the level of a gifting. Those who have this gift that is accompanied by significant pain (not always—maybe only sometimes) feel heavy, melancholy, and are unable to enjoy the pleasures of the world around them to the same degree as those who do not have this spiritual gift. Why? Because they are carrying an awareness (sometimes crushing) that the world and everything in it is disordered. Things are not as they should be.
As I just mentioned, the gift of disordered depression is often accompanied by pain. The benefit of this pain is that it opens the hearts of those who experience it to a deeper awareness of what lies behind the mortal mask the world wears. These people know that beneath the veneer façade is a reality that speaks of eternal truth. They have eyes to see a greater truth beyond what is seen with physical eyes.
I’m going to be brief on this next one, but a second example of a spiritual-emotional gifting is a deep nagging anxiety people experience due to feeling helpless in this world–at the mercy of so many unpredictable factors. Let’s call this gift “LOC (lack of control) Anxiety”. Those who possess this gift are acutely aware that there are many things in their world that they (and others around them) cannot control including external factors like violence done against them and dangerous viruses and Satanic attacks or internal factors like physical illness and mental illness and even death.
LOCA is the spiritual-emotional gifting that involves a deep awareness that all humans are very vulnerable because they cannot control most things in their world and body. The individuals who have this gift are acutely sensitive to their mortality and the overall fragility of the world. They also have a realistic awareness that they and others often can do little to protect themselves in an unpredictable world.
People can talk all they want about an internal locus of control, but these individuals gifted with LOCA know that, ultimately, they control very little in their lives—and so they experience a spiritual anxiety that accompanies powerlessness. Thankfully, this same deep spiritual awareness that burdens them will also (by the power of the Spirit) drive them to seek the only One who has control over the wind and the waves of this world.
A third example of a spiritual-emotional gift is a profound sadness that accompanies loss. Obviously, we all grieve at major losses like the death of a loved one or when a friend or family member moves far away. But those who have the spiritual gift of “separation sadness”, let’s call it, feel deeply sad at most goodbyes of any type or feel the sadness of loss for a longer period of time than do most people following the separation. Once again, we must distinguish between individuals who are experiencing an unhealthy “complicated” grief and those who have the spiritual-emotional gift of separation sadness.
Those who have been gifted with separation sadness have a deep awareness that goodbyes, losses, and separations were never meant to be a part of this world but only came after the Fall. Their sadness comes from being highly aware of the difference between what the Garden of Eden was like before Adam and Eve sinned and what the Garden of Gethsemane was like that dark night when Jesus was betrayed and arrested.
I suppose the disordered depression gift triggered by the brokenness of the world, the LOCA gift occasioned by a sense of having little control in a vast universe, and the separation sadness gift flowing out of a sensitivity to temporal loss in an eternal spiritual existence could be seen by some as having a bit of an obsessive quality to them or a perseverance of thinking where a person’s mind keeps going back to the same thought. I would not agree with this observation.
However, I believe that some individuals are drawn to certain thoughts, emotions, and events because they have a gift of being specially connected to the suffering of the universe. I see these people as being more deeply aware of the pain that came after the Fall of humanity in the Garden. I also see it as a suffering that occurs in individuals who are specially sensitized to an awareness of the spiritual world beyond the physical world.
Dare I say that some of these spiritually gifted people are deeply connected to the heart of God who feels the pain and suffering of the fallen world far more than any human? Do you remember Jesus being deeply moved at the tomb of Lazarus? I believe men and women who possess these spiritual-emotional gifts are moved deeply like Jesus (not to the same degree as Him, obviously) was because they have a special awareness of the groaning in the universe.
Individuals who possess the gift of separation sadness have a mineshaft in their soul that connects them to the fallenness of the universe. They sense the separation between God and His creation. They feel the distance that occurred after the Fall between God and His people. They desire to be back home with the Father and no longer live away from His Presence. They want to be with God and away from separation.
These spiritual-emotional gifts like disordered depression, LOCA, or separation sadness (or even obsessive-compulsive symptoms that reveal a person’s acute awareness of their own badness–sometimes exaggerated by Satan’s accusations or experienced apart from the power of grace) often become more acute as a person grows older. However, I still believe they are planted in the hearts of men and women when they are very young.
Why do some people have these gifts? Possibly because of personality types that are more sensitive. Maybe due to poignant events or repeated pain that impacted their hearts and souls as young children. Maybe simply because they received gifts from God to comfort those who are suffering in this Fallen world of separation, lack of control, and disordered brokenness.
I suppose there are other avenues to experience the deeper spiritual-emotional realities of this world such as dreams, visions, prophecies, and other giftings. Whatever channel through which they come to certain individuals, I believe all these soul-sensitive gifts remain with a person for a lifetime.
So, if you believe you might be someone who has a spiritual-emotional gift such as disordered depression, LOCA, or separation sadness, this sensitivity that is often accompanied by pain, suffering, and groaning may be with you until the day when all men and women who love Jesus will leave this world behind and finally be called home.
If you have one of these gifts which I have not exhaustively listed in this post, know that you will experience the spiritual realities of this world on a deeper level. You may, in fact, by the leading of the Spirit, be experiencing the mind of Christ or the heart of the Father. You may feel alone because you sense that few people share your experience. No wonder some refer to these giftings as “the burden of the light.” A person sees spiritual realities that are a burden to carry and often done alone.
But fear not: there is one enduring hope for you: The death and resurrection of Jesus.
If you experience disordered depression, if you have the gift of Loss of Control Anxiety, if you feel the deep sadness of separation, if you are gifted to feel your own badness or the badness of others to an acute degree, know that Jesus died to transform all the deep groanings that accompany these special awarenesses.
His death and resurrection offer the promise that the disordered depression and groaning of the world and humanity will be replaced by full adoption and joy; that the anxiety that comes from feeling that you have so little control in this world will be erased by the truth that every knee will bow at the name of Jesus who is Lord over everything including the details of your life; that the day is coming when Jesus will make everything right, keeping His promise that there will be no more death or tears; that you no longer need to obsess about your badness because Jesus, the perfect sacrifice, paid for it on the cross—all of it.
So, let everyone rejoice in the death and resurrection of Jesus—but maybe especially you whose souls are sensitized to the Fallenness of this world and so carry a burden that feels too heavy for you. Your heart now breaks for what breaks His, but one day soon your heart will rejoice in what His rejoices in.
Walking closely with Jesus is to suffer from the dissonance between what the world was before the Fall, what it is now in the current reality, and also what it will be in the future kingdom when Jesus returns.
But for those of you who have these spiritual-emotional giftings, be careful not to get swallowed up by your special awareness as may have happened to Elijah in 1 Kings 19 when he was afraid and fled into the wilderness and sat under the broom tree waiting to die. You must keep your eyes on Jesus. You must dwell on the hope to be found in a trusting relationship with Him.
So, whatever special burden you carry as you share in the sufferings of Jesus, know that you will help to carry the pain of others. There is a reason you experience what you do. Just be sure to share your experiences with others, to not be alone, to be transparent in the body of Christ. You do want to heal depression, anxiety, sadness, or obsessing about badness that He does not want you to carry.
For some of you, however, be prepared to exercise your spiritual-emotional gift for a lifetime. But He will never leave you alone. He will always go with you.
4But he [Elijah] himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” 5And he lay down and slept under a broom tree. And behold, an angel touched him and said to him, “Arise and eat.” 6And he looked, and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water. And he ate and drank and lay down again. 7And the angel of the LORD came again a second time and touched him and said, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” 8And he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mount of God ~ I Kings 19:4ff
32Now when Mary came to where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet, saying to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” 33When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply movede in his spirit and greatly troubled. 34And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” 35Jesus wept. 36So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” ~ John 11:32ff
