Better Not Get Bitter!

bitterness

It can only harm you!

 

I think it was the machete used to cut the pineapple.

In 1987 while ministering in Guatemala, we were visiting a tiny village a long way off the beaten path. The villagers wanted us to taste the fruit just picked. I wanted to taste the fruit just picked. But with the taste came the giardia.

Returning home, within weeks the parasites made their presence known. Oh, how they made their presence known! But after twenty-four days of powerful prescriptions, I found the meaning of the phrase ‘the cure is worse than the disease.

The medication destroyed the part of my inner ears that help with balance. So I lean a lot. And taking a walk with me in the dark is an adventure in moving. With inner ears not doing their job and the darkness taking away another of my balancing mechanisms, I’m left with only the muscles in my legs to keep me upright.

I work hard to keep anyone from seeing me in my ‘less than top form’, but occasionally I stand, quickly make a turn and begin walking. And sometimes my turn keeps going and I turn into a wall … or a person … or the piano.

But what I don’t want to turn into is bitter.

Compared to many disabilities, mine ranks pretty low. Yet I still get angry when I knock over a dish of peanuts or plant my nose into someone’s family picture on the wall.

People have lost limbs, buried children, been burned out of their home. They’ve served sentences unjustly, been betrayed by close friends … even family members. There have been those who have moved from rich to poor overnight. Some received devastating, pronouncements from their doctor.

The Apostle Paul had some gigantic ‘bitterness pills’ that he refused to swallow. They included things like shipwrecks, beatings, stonings, nights without lodging and days without food. (He called them “ … light afflictions!” II Corinthians 4:17)

Bitterness can follow something painful, unexpected. The circumstance is difficult to accept; creates resentment against a person or action, against God or against life itself. It clouds the future and victimizes the victim with poor health, seething anger and the inability to move ahead in life. We hold on to bitterness as though it will free us from our hurt. But it never does. Ever!

But bitter circumstances don’t require us to become bitter. We can acknowledge a God who is bigger than the pain. We can lay the offense down knowing that “ … God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” Romans 8:28 New Living Translation

 Check your heart for bitterness this week. If it’s there repent of it … let it go. It can only hurt you and ruin the relationship with those around you.

 

“Look after each other so that not one of you will fail to find God’s best blessings.

Watch out that no bitterness takes root among you, for as it springs up

it causes deep trouble, hurting many in their spiritual lives.”

Hebrews 12:15 TLB

 

 

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One Response to “Better Not Get Bitter!”

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