Crushed Spirits – Proverbs 18:14

Rachel Boehm writes, at Network.crcna.org, in her article, Emotional Abuse: The Crushing of the Human Spirit,

Individuals who have experienced emotional abuse often suffer from “a crushed spirit.” The wounds caused by emotional abuse may not be visible to the human eye, but they leave an indelible mark on the human heart.

What is emotional abuse? According to Emotional Abuse: What You Should Know, emotional abuse takes place “when a person uses words, silence, or actions to threaten, belittle, or humiliate another person.” The ultimate goal of emotional abuse is to control someone through fear or intimidation.

Over time, emotional abuse wears away at a person’s self esteem, contributing to feelings of helplessness and depression. Helplessness creates dependency, which in turn gives the abuser even more control. It’s a vicious cycle.

The Bible has something to say about crushed spirits.

A man’s spirit will endure sickness,

but a crushed spirit who can bear? (Proverbs 18:14, ESV)

Children are especially susceptible to crushed spirits, simply because they are the most vulnerable to what parents or those who care for them say about or to them.  The parent or guardian represents God and the world to them, and should a parent or guardian then communicate that the child has no worth, they believe it.

But this same situation or one like it can come about for adults, when someone so close to us, who has such emotional power in our lives, demeans us.  Our spirits can be crushed.  And we might even believe that God has demeaned us by failing to give us what we felt we needed.  It seems to us that he failed to meet our tests that would prove He loves us.

This proverb does not say that a crushed spirit is unrecoverable.  God is quite capable of restoring crushed spirits.  As we find in Him our true worth and that we are loved unconditionally, our spirits revive.

Perhaps this proverb is also a warning to us not to be crushers of spirits.  We must never treat one whom God loves as unlovable. We must never demean someone whom God has made in His image and given immense worth.  We bear great responsibility to treat people as God does.