Bitter
“Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal.”
Hebrews 12:12-16
WHAT IS BITTERNESS?
It feels like the world is so angry these days. You might be listening because you know somebody who’s bitter and you’re thinking, “I’m never bitter. I never struggle with that.” My goal is to bust your bubble on that, because I think we all struggle with bitterness. It’s so subtle. It’s something in our mind where we just have a little grudge that we hold or we dwell on what we don’t have, what we should have, and how it’s not going our way. Bitterness is usually grown out of wrongs held onto for a long time. I don’t think we realize we do it. If we did, we would get free of it. No one wants that in our lives! The problem is it grows slowly and over time. It starts with a feeling of justification - I deserve that or I was wronged by that or I have a right to that. Those are the statements that usually preceded whatever happened. I deserved ______. I didn’t deserve _________. All of us have those moments where we feel wronged and there’s some injustice that has come against us in some way big or small. I want to talk about what it looks like to let that go.
So many of you have been in your homes for months on end with your family. Either your parents, your spouse, or your kids - and you’re just exhausted. Some of you have been hurt by family members this season - whether it’s politics or something else. What I would say is, we always have a choice and we have to choose a better way than to live in bondage to this. Bitterness is prison. It is a prison you have the ability to walk out of. You holding a grudge will not hurt the person nearly as much as it will hurt you. I’m going to read this out of Philippians 3: “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
WE NEED A PERSPECTIVE SHIFT
This is a whole other way to live! To lay down what we deserve, lay down what we think is fair, lay down our gain and to count it as rubbish. To be able to say, “we don’t need this, because I have God!” You can not beat that. Our inheritance that awaits us is way better than whatever crud is going on down here. I think this perspective shift is what I hope you get from this podcast every single time you listen. My hope is that we would all loosen up a little about what’s not going right in our lives, because we get Heaven! What I believe has changed my life more than any other thing is as I know God, my hope on this earth gets smaller and my hope in Heaven gets bigger. That shift has changed everything. When I suffer, when things do not go my way big or small, there’s a little bit more of a shoulder shrug and move on. There’s a little bit less angst and bitterness and control. I feel a little more happy and grateful even in the midst of suffering. Why? Because our hope is not in this world! It is a whole, radical different way to live.
Jesus lived this. We watched him do it. He laid down his rights over and over and over again. The child of God was on earth and he was hated, not respected, and constantly misunderstood. He walked through that and he chose it and he loved people anyway. He knew this was a minute in light of eternity. He understood that this would go by quickly and he didn’t need everything to work out right for his comfort and for his good. He knew in the end it would work out better than any of us could imagine.
BITTERNESS AND RELATIONSHIPS
Every time we make the decision to love someone, we open ourselves up to suffering. It’s something we talked about when we talked about loneliness. It is a risk! When you put your life into other people’s hands and you’re vulnerable and you say the hard things and love them sacrificially, it is nearly impossible to do that regularly and not get hurt. You will get hurt! Because people are sinners and you’re a sinner. You will hurt and people will hurt you. It’s a key fundamental thing to understand if you want to have healthy relationships that hurt will happen. Your feelings will be hurt. They won’t be the perfect friend or family member or spouse. You have to decide if you can love imperfect people. Can you let offenses go? Can you work through them if they’re offenses that aren’t small? Are you willing to do the work of conflict resolution? The temptation of bitterness is that we are wronged and in some subtle way, we’re getting back at them by holding onto the grudge. But the other person moves on! The enemy is good at sowing roots of bitterness. Those seeds grow into unforgiveness, anger, despair, and depression. It only destroys you, not the other person. Unforgiveness doesn’t even make sense. It doesn’t punish the other person - it only hurts you. Letting things go as often as we can, and this is 1 Corinthians 13, that we wouldn’t keep a record of wrongs. We don’t hold onto the ways people have hurt us. We don’t dwell on it. We don’t punish them for it. We don’t even remember it!
I remember early in our marriage, that was really important to Zac. When we would get in a fight, which we often did, if I ever brought something up from an earlier argument, he wouldn’t have it. He would say, “we already worked through that! Can we let that go? Can we start today with good will and faith instead of tallying up every wrong?” Now I look back and that was very wise. After 23 years of marriage, that would be a really long list. If I dwelled on that list, I would think I have the worst husband! But I learned to forget. I realized holding onto that did nothing for us. His record of good is so long! It’s a million times longer than his record of wrongs! But if I just held onto that record of wrongs and defined our marriage by it and couldn’t let it go, that would be the worst marriage. Now we can have a fight and an hour later not remember what it was about. Honestly, we don’t even have to majorly work through it because we’re not easily offended. That’s 20+ years and a lot of counseling later, but I’m telling you it’s such a better way to live. You can save your money on counseling and just do those things: 1. Do not be easily offended and 2. Do not keep a record of wrongs. I’m not saying don’t work through stuff. There are times of such hurt that if you don’t deal with it, you can not move forward. For that, my hope and prayer is that you would do the work. Wrestle through whatever it is that needs to be forgiven.
Q&A
What are some questions we could ask ourselves to spot bitterness in our own lives?
When you survey your relationships, is there anybody you kind of feel like “eh, I don’t really want to see them.” A good friend! Sometimes acquaintances who aren’t life-giving we can feel that way about, but I’m talking about the people you really love. Your family members and your closest friends - is there anybody you just don’t really want to engage with? You’re probably holding onto some bitterness. Somewhere and someway they have hurt you. You’re distancing yourself from them. This has happened to me recently with a really good friend, and she surprised me with something that really hurt my feelings and for a few weeks after that, I just didn’t want to see her. I had to push through it. I love that friend! I was not going to let that destroy our friendship and make us distant. I got more intentional with that friendship! I did address it and made sure we were okay, but I didn’t let it define our future or our relationship. I had to choose to not be bitter or hold onto it. That choice was more time together. What are those places you feel that twinge of distance and putting up a wall?
I want to let go, but I don’t know how to do it practically. What do I do?
The first thing you’ve got to do is name it. You’ve got to put words around it. You need to do that with somebody who’s safe! Not a peer or somebody that’s in that same friend group - that’s gossip. Call your mom or a friend that’s out of town - somebody that doesn’t have any tie to that relationship. But process it and name it. If it is something you can not let go after a day or two, talk to that person. In a healthy, grown-up way, tell them how they hurt you. Acknowledge that you’re trying to let it go, but that they hurt you, and you want to be right with them. They may just apologize and you’ll leave with closure and it’ll go great, but it may not go that way. Either way - you have to let it go. The main way you get out of thinking about bitterness is choose gratitude. Do not dwell on the bad. When my mind starts to circle around a hurt or an offense, I stop it. That doesn’t get my time. Life is too short and God is too good to give that time. If it grows and grows, I’ll talk to them about it. But we have to try to not be easily offended.
I can’t quite put a finger on what’s made me bitter, I just feel it. I feel angry, apathetic, and callous, but I don’t know how to get to the bottom of it.
This is where we’ve got to do better with our relationships and friendships. We’ve got to talk. Go listen to the Loneliness episode from last week! There was a quote from Henri Nouwen about how sometimes when you’re sitting across from someone, you see things about yourself you didn’t even know. In your mind by yourself it doesn’t come up, but with a good friend you feel safe enough to say it. This is where you’ve got to bring people in. You can not fight this alone. We’ve got to be doing this in community. Sometimes with my friends, I’ll just say, “I’m feeling something and I just need to talk about it. Will you ask me some good questions and help me diagnose this?” I acknowledge that I’m going to take up the oxygen in the room for a second and I just need somebody to listen and be a good friend. You’re telling everyone your expectations and what you need, so you won’t be disappointed. That’s the grown-up thing to do. When I say those things and hear myself talk, I’ll ask my friend, “what do you think?” Almost always my friends nail it on the head. If you’re really vulnerable and share what it is you’re feeling, you can almost always get to the bottom of it. We live with ourselves all the time and have so many thoughts, we don’t know what it is we’re feeling. Sometimes we just have to hear ourselves say it so other people can help us get to the root of it.
I’m praying that strongholds that have been built up over years or just over quarantine are being broken. I pray we choose to not live as bitter people, because what a waste of life.
