Bitterness 1: A Failure to See the Big Picture

“See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of the bitterness, springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled:” - Hebrews 12.15

Anyone who has had any experience with bitterness knows that it is like cancer to the soul; swift, stealthy, and indiscriminate. Bitterness builds walls within the human heart faster than any artisan with brick and mortar. Above all, bitterness squelches life, like the thorny root that grows up amongst the flowering plant and silently chokes it. While taking a walk with my husband’s grandmother, Pearl, she said, “Bitterness is what happens when we take offense. Only it is we who become sick; not the person who offended us.”

The word “bitter” is a derivative from the Old English biter, or, bite, and is defined as “designating or having a sharp, often unpleasant taste;” bitterness is that state which is “characterized by strong feelings of hatred, resentment, cynicism” (Webster’s New World). The word in Greek is pikria meaning: 1) bitter gall; a) extreme wickedness; or b) a bitter root, and so producing a bitter fruit.

Scripture is ripe with examples of individuals who struggled with bitterness. In obedience to the Lord, the prophet Jeremiah preached repentance to the Israelites during the Babylonian exile; as a result he faced tremendous persecution, compelling him to write, “He [God] hath filled me with bitterness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood” (Lamentations 3.15).

Because she could not conceive a child Hannah “[was] in bitterness of soul, and prayed unto the LORD, and wept sore” (1 Samuel 1.10).

Job is perhaps most obvious biblical example of someone who, by human standards, had just cause for bitterness. In the wake of devastating losses – his health and assets, his social standing and friends, even his children – Job cries out to the Lord saying, “I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul” (Job 7.11).

His story proves that we are most susceptible to bitterness when our sense of justice is violated; when we are persecuted, seemingly without cause, or cast down without explanation; when a hope is deferred; a dream shattered; or an expectation which we considered legitimate is left unmet.

Job’s primary obstacle against discerning God’s good intent was that he was bound by time. He did not have perfect knowledge. He could not see beyond his present circumstances; could not, even faintly, anticipate what the outcome of his story would be. All he knew for certain was that he was in pain.

But because we have access to the end of Job’s tale we can see that his bitterness is based on an incomplete view of history. At the end of Job’s trials, God not only restores his position, but grants Job an impartation of Himself. In response Job rescinds his complaint: “Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know” (italics mine, Job 42.3).

In the face of my own pain, when I am overcome with bitterness that my friend, my husband, God Himself would allow X event to come into my life, I must remember that God does nothing by accident. He not only institutes the circumstances that come into my life,but He controls the outcome. “He knows our frame; and is mindful that we are but dust.” Perhaps most importantly, He is working to accomplish what concerns each of us; to complete the good work He began so that we can cling with confidence to the promise in 1 Peter 3: “After you have suffered for a little the God of all strength will himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you.”