Grieving or Glorifying - Judges 10:16b

...And his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.

Judges 10:16b

Much of the Book of Judges concerns the spirituality of God’s people, Israel. In spite of all that the Lord had done for them and their descendants, they kept forsaking God and began to worship false gods of the Canaanites. When the Lord punished them for their evil deeds, they would repent, and the Lord would raise up a deliverer and bring them out of the bondage they had put themselves into. This cycle is repeated over and over again in this Old Testament book.

One of these many cycles is exposed in this sixteenth verse. The “his” is God. God’s soul was grieved! A clearer expression of God’s grief can be seen in His Son in the garden. He prayed, and His sweat became as blood flowing down His face and falling down on the ground. This verse tells us of the “misery” that Israel was under because of their sinning. They were miserable, but God was grieving!

For the believer, if we become spiritually lazy, and lay our armor aside, we can quickly become entangled in worldly things. We forget how He brought us out of darkness to light, out of bondage and into victory, and from death to life. We begin to gratify the flesh and to lust after worldly things. As a believer, we should become like Israel - miserable! So what does God experience when this happens? According to this verse, His soul is grieved! It is a hurt that we have never felt. It is a disappointment that we have never experienced. It is an unimaginable feeling that ‘s beyond our ability to understand; not only because of our sinning, but our situation also - “misery”. The Lord will chasten the prodigal with much grief, not with pleasure.

Sometimes we wonder if God really knows how we feel. Maybe we should think about how God is feeling concerning our choices.

As the children of God, let’s do our very best to glorify our wonderful Savior and not grieve Him.