Turns Out I Make a Really Bad Holy Spirit

I’ll just start with the uncomfortable truth: I make a terrible Holy Spirit. You would think that would be a pretty obvious conclusion to come to, but there was a long stretch of my life when I didn’t realize that.

In fact, I really thought I was helping people. I thought God needed me to speak up, to “lean in,” to offer the hard truth no one else was willing to say. Somewhere along the way I confused boldness with maturity and urgency with wisdom.

If the Holy Spirit descended like a dove at Jesus’ baptism, I was more like a bull crashing through the clouds. I meant well, I really did, but my presence in hard conversations had all the subtlety of a hoofed animal dropping from the sky. And for a long time, I thought that was a good thing.

I remember one night years ago when a guy in our community group joked, “Ronnie, you really don’t mind being hated, do you?” He laughed when he said it. I did too. Honestly, I wore it like a badge of honor. In my mind, being the guy who would jump into the tough conversations meant I was spiritually strong and willing to do what others wouldn’t.

“If the Holy Spirit descended like a dove at Jesus’ baptism, I was more like a bull crashing through the clouds.”

Looking back now, the truth is pretty simple: I was trying to do a job that didn’t belong to me.

I was trying to force clarity where God might have wanted gentleness. I was trying to manage outcomes. I was trying to fix people. In subtle ways, I was trying to do the Spirit’s job for Him.

If there were a spiritual gift for unsolicited commentary, I would’ve been top of my class.

•••

There’s some embarrassment in admitting that. I can see now how many conversations I walked into with certainty instead of curiosity. How often I showed up ready with answers instead of presence. How quick I was to assume I understood what someone needed when half the time I didn’t even know what I needed. Which, now that I’m older, feels like the most obvious red flag in the world.

What I missed was that most people didn’t need me to diagnose them. They needed someone to sit with them. To listen without trying to control the moment. To love them without trying to win something.

You don’t have to be in ministry or part of a church to drift into this. It happens in families, friendships, marriages, parenting—anywhere humans interact with other humans. We step into a moment with someone we love, and before we know it, we’re lecturing, teaching, fixing, explaining. We start offering our take on what they should feel or believe or do.

But we’re not the Spirit. And that’s a really good thing.

•••

The Spirit never bulldozes people into transformation. He never rushes someone through the slow work of becoming whole. He guides, convicts, comforts, and leads.

Now I’m slowly learning what it means to love people without grabbing the steering wheel. I’m learning what it feels like to trust the Spirit to do what only He can do. I’m learning that presence really is more powerful than pressure, and that listening usually accomplishes more than talking.

“The Spirit never bulldozes people into transformation. He never rushes someone through the slow work of becoming whole. He guides, convicts, comforts, and leads.”

Here’s the part I wish I had understood years ago: God doesn’t need me to manage people into maturity. He invites me to love them while He does the shaping. And that’s a very different posture.

When I look back at the version of myself who thought he needed to jump in, I feel this mix of gratitude and regret. Gratitude because God didn’t let me stay there forever. Regret because some people felt the weight of my urgency more than the warmth of my love.

To be clear, I don’t have this figured out. Not even close. I still catch myself ready to tighten my grip on something that was never mine to hold. But now, when that impulse rises in me, there’s this quiet reminder in the back of my mind:

I’m not the Spirit. I’m just someone learning to follow Him.

The rest is His job, not mine.