The Dentist, Devotions and the Holy Spirit

Not are real pleasant thought is it.

In the upper room discourse Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit and the Greek word is Paraclete. That word is often translated Comforter. One of the problems with translation is that we can assign our understanding to the meaning of a word. In our culture we have taken the word comforter and turned it into something soft, warm, and cozy, like a big fluffy blanket on a cold wintry day. If that is our understanding of the Comforter we badly misunderstand His ministry and roll.
Jesus said, "and when He comes he will convict the world concerning sin, and righteousness, and judgment.”  That is hardly a good description of a soft, warm, and cozy blanket. Allow me to offer a different analogy concerning the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

I have a tooth that I think is going bad. There's a low-grade ache associated with it and a growing sensitivity to things warm and especially to things that are very cold. A couple of years ago when the dentist was working on an adjacent tooth he commented how deep the roots on this tooth were and how they were shaped like a corkscrew or a fishhook. This would make it extremely difficult to ever do a root canal or to extract the tooth.

When I go in to have this repair done the dentist is going to do things to me that are very uncomfortable; he will stab me with a sharp pointy thing, he will drill on me, he may even have to pull things that might tear flesh. None of which will be warm or cozy or soft. But it will be absolutely essential to get to the cause of the problem and to prevent additional decay, additional hurt, and possibly life threatening infections that can go to the heart.

When the Holy Spirit works on my soul and my spirit and confronts me about sin, confronts me about ego and pride, confronts me about my agenda to be first, it is not warm, cozy, or soft. It can at times be quite miserable. The longer I delay the more it's going to hurt. The longer I delay the greater the danger to my soul.
The metaphor of a dentist as an expression of the Holy Spirit is clearly post-biblical.  But it may be more accurate than our concept of what we think when we hear the word “Comforter”.  Consistently through the New Testament the idea of the Holy Spirit’s comfort is associated with the aftermath of repentance. The dull ache and heat sensitivity of my tooth will only be healed, apart from divine intervention, by the painful work of a dentist. The decay of my soul can only be achieved when I find the Holy Spirit painfully dealing with the root problem.