All bitterness starts out as hurt, and your emotional pain may well relate to viewing whomever (or whatever) provoked this hurt (generally, your assumed “perpetrator”) as having malicious intent. Bitterness is one of the most destructive and toxic of human emotions; an irritable state of mind which produces harsh and hard opinions of others. Bitterness is also described as an attitude resulting from something that is difficult to accept.
Bitterness starts out small; hurt burrows its way into our hearts. We replay it in our minds, we retell our hurts to any available listener, including each sordid detail. We enlist support, pushing us further into our resentment. We hear the offending person's name and cringe. We decipher the offense as intentional and our offender as full of spite. We look for other reasons, both real or imagined, to dislike our offender. With each new piece of information, we form another layer of bitterness.
When you are offended or disappointed by others, and allow the hurt to germinate in your heart, bitterness and resentment will take root. Characterized by an unforgiving spirit and generally negative, critical attitude, bitterness and resentment are sinful and self-defeating. They will color your conscious and unconscious thoughts and actions. Allowed to fester, they will destroy and kill. However, they can be dispelled with love.
Bitterness starts out small; hurt burrows its way into our hearts. We replay it in our minds, we retell our hurts to any available listener, including each sordid detail. We enlist support, pushing us further into our resentment. We hear the offending person's name and cringe. We decipher the offense as intentional and our offender as full of spite. We look for other reasons, both real or imagined, to dislike our offender. With each new piece of information, we form another layer of bitterness.
When you are offended or disappointed by others, and allow the hurt to germinate in your heart, bitterness and resentment will take root. Characterized by an unforgiving spirit and generally negative, critical attitude, bitterness and resentment are sinful and self-defeating. They will color your conscious and unconscious thoughts and actions. Allowed to fester, they will destroy and kill. However, they can be dispelled with love.
3) If you allow bitterness a place in your heart, it will eventually come out of your mouth in murmuring, and complaining.
J) Job complains to his friends.
Oh that my grief were throughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together! For now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea: therefore my words are swallowed up [have been rash]. {Job 6:2-3}
K) Constant complaining can lead to depression.
My soul is weary of my life; I will leave my complaint upon myself; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. {Job 10:1}
L) Job's self-righteousness caused him to become bitter against God, thinking he knew better.
Then Job answered and said, even today is my complaint bitter: my stroke is heavier than my groaning. Oh that I knew where I might find Him! That I might come even to His seat! I would order my cause before Him, and fill my mouth with arguments. {Job 23:1-4}
4) The Lord, in His love, can deliver you from the sin of bitterness. Here are some examples of three who overcame it, and one who didn't:
M) Joseph: his brothers had despised him; they brutally sold him into slavery and lied to their father that he had been killed by a wild animal; he spent time in prison on false charges of rape; was left there for two years longer because Pharaoh's forgetful chief butler forgot his promise to help get Joseph out of jail. In spite of all this, Joseph reconciled with his brothers: {Genesis 45:3-15}
N) Hannah: mother of Samuel, was sorely provoked every year by Peninnah, the second wife of her husband, Elkanah. Peninnah had children and purposely tried to make Hannah feel badly because she had no children. After years of Peninnah doing this, Hannah, having become bitter, not eating well and feeling that she somehow was not blessed of the Lord, took her bitterness to the Lord in desperate prayer, openly confessing her grief, both to the Lord, and to Eli, the priest, and finally a great victory was one, first by faith, followed by the Lord's blessings. {Samuel 1:10}
O) King Hezekiah: grew bitter during a nearly fatal illness. During his worst days, he felt the Lord was cutting him off. Yet his desperate prayer and tears brought eventual healing and victory. {Isaiah 38:10-17}
P) Absalom: son of King David, bitterly hated his half-brother, Amnon, for having raped Tamar, Absalom's full sister. This unbridled bitterness grew for two years until Absalom had Amnon killed. {2 Samuel 13:22}
5) Bitterness stems from feelings of anger and an unforgiving attitude towards others.
Q) If we are truly hungry to learn from the Lord, even bitter experiences are looked upon as "blessings in disguise."The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet. {Proverbs 27:7}
R) Bitterness is also described as the feelings resulting from something that is difficult to accept; so it's important to always remember that the Lord has a good purpose in everything that He allows to happen to us.
We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. {Romans 8:28}
S) God's Word often speaks of "renewing our minds," which implies letting go of the old; particularly any past grievances, and bitterness.
And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. {Romans 12:2}
T) Going to bed in anger gives place to the Devil.
Let not the sun go down upon your wrath; Neither give place to the Devil.{Ephesians 4:26b, 27}
U) Bitterness is also caused by holding on to bad or angry feelings about someone or something that happened, but the Lord tells us to forget the things that are past.
Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before. {Philippians 3:13}
Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. {Colossians 3:13}
W) If you're finding it difficult to forgive the people that hurt you, begin to pray for them. You'll find it is impossible to be unforgiving toward those you're praying for.
If you need forgiveness, and you need to forgive, here’s a simple prayer:
(insert the name of the person in the blanks)
Father, I acknowledge that I've held resentment and bitterness against __________. I confess this as sin and ask you to forgive me. I forgive __________. Remind me, Lord, not to hold any more resentments, but rather to love this person. Father, I ask you to forgive ___________ also. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. In Jesus' name, Amen.
