I’ve recently encountered the Spirit of Grief during ministry times. This spirit is VERY deceiving. It presents as “entitlement”; i.e. “I am allowed to feel this way because I suffered, my heart is broken and God understands.”

Now, we all need time to grief. The Bible teaches on 3 periods: 7 days, 30 days and 11 months.

We have to allow ourselves to cry, to pine, to scream if we need to, talk to God, receive His consolation, go through the void, the aching and establish a new way of life; a new normal. We never get over the loss; trust me. I hate when people say “time will heal”. It doesn’t, and to me I still feel the loss; at times worse than before.

I have, however, learnt how to live with it better.

Why only for a season?
If we grief for longer than that, chances are a spirit of grief can take hold.

How do I know whether I am grieving in a healthy way or not?
Do you still burst into tears, get angry, have heavy emotional reactions at the sound of their name? Do you pine so badly that you cry yourself to sleep after years and years? Do thoughts and feelings of them dominate your life?

If so, there is a good reason to believe you have a spirit of grief lodging.

When we partner (or unknowingly allowed it in) with this spirit, it effectively makes us push God’s voice aside and say ‘we don’t need His healing, His consolation, we are okay as we are’. Being a master deceiver, we then partner with self-righteousness (a form of pride) and ultimately we worship “self” thereby it becomes an act of idolatry. Why? When we worship pain, grief and entitlement, we effectively worship our FEELINGS. Our self. Me.

In return, we stay stuck in the past and don’t live in the present. This spirit robs us from our life, potential, growth and destiny.

Don’t allow anything to steal your best life from you. Be determined to be all that Christ had died for you to be, to have and to become.

“He heals the broken in heart, and binds up their wounds”

— Psalm 147:3, MEV

---