Grieving the Holy Spirit

And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. – Ephesians 4:30 (NIV)

What do you think it means to grieve the Holy Spirit? Is there something about you that might grieve God? Do you believe yourself to have been sealed by the Holy Spirit?

Once as a chaplain I was called to be with someone who “needed support.” When I arrived I was told the woman in the room had just watched her husband die in front of her. She was morbidly obese and had been bed ridden for several years. Earlier that day her husband arrived home and had a heart attack, falling to the ground. There was no phone within her reach and as she struggled to reach the phone to call for help her husband passed away only feet from her.
She was brought to us, and I was called to be with her, to make sure she wasn’t alone. I entered the room and the first thing that hit me was the smell. This poor woman had not bathed for years and the smell of years of neglect saturated each corner of the tiny room she in which she lay. Parts of her body were caked with layers of dirt and filth. I attempted some words of comfort, but they were inauthentic as I tried to situate myself as far as possible from her, as I tried to save myself.
For perhaps 20 minutes or so I stood far from her in this room. She a grieving widow, and me fairly useless, unwilling to even hold her hand. It was then I heard footsteps approaching the room, and I turned to the door in time to see a little girl, maybe 7 or 8 years of age run into that sad room. She ran right to the bed and jumped onto the woman. The girl threw her tiny arms around the woman’s neck, kissed her cheek and said, “I love you grandma. Don’t worry I’m here now and it will be all right.”
I wonder how much I grieved the Holy Spirit before that girl entered and taught me how to love.

When we do not live the lives to which we have been called and for which we have been saved, should we ever add to the misery of another living soul, and at those times we abandon Christian charity for selfish ambition of any sort, we grieve the Holy Spirit. However when we live into the reality of our redemption, the places we go become the places Christ can be found because he lives in us. Then there is no grieving the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit is celebrating that we have become the joy with which God created us!

With hope and joy,
Garrett