Blog
“BITTERNESS”
Categories: MTBitterness, defined is: anger and disappointment at being treated unfairly; resentment.
And a deeper study reveals that underneath bitterness is PAIN. And from pain unresolved, stems fear, not love.
We can be bitter, angry, disappointed on an emotional, spiritual, or physical level.
Evidences of Bitterness
- • We may be bitter about abuse we’ve experienced
- • We may be bitter about any situation where we felt we were given an unfair treatment
- • We can be bitter toward our parents for how they treated us
- • We may be bitter about problems in the church, people who’ve let us down
- • We may be bitter because someone we trusted, loved…rejected us, turned us down
Either way, it stems from a resentment, pain, disappointment because we didn’t get justice, or at least our sense of what “fair” looks like.
You and I often deal with bitterness in a way that seems right to us. Tell me if this sounds familiar:
somebody does us wrong and we gossip about it, stew over it, wall off, get bitter…
We know we can’t be angry, wrathful, so we feel pretty good about being bigger than the other person…
we don’t lash out at them. Victory for God, right? But in our heart is a bitter feeling toward that person.
Unresolved. We will “forgive,” but we won’t forget—after all, they owe us something. They better not do it again.
They have a mark on their record with us—but who’s counting?
Maybe we aren’t even that far. Maybe we’re still stuck on avoiding them, cutting them off.
We’re mad and they need to know it because they have to notice I’ve pulled back from them.
After all, they deserve it.
I’m right. Maybe they’ll ask me why I’m ignoring them. Then, I can let them have it. Justice.
But you see, here’s the problem. Bitterness FEELS right because it FEELS like JUSTICE.
Ephesians 4: 31-32
31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.
32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
