This is one area that I have really fallen into a trap. In my own personal experience, it can turn you away from the one who loves you the most ( God).
"See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many." - Hebrews 12:15
In business and life the opportunity to harbor bitterness for a wrong suffered is great. We are given plenty of opportunities to grow bitter from relationships that bring hurt and pain. The writer of the Hebrews passage above admonishes us not to miss the grace of God so that we won't take up bitterness as a response to life's pain. He cautions us against this because he knows that a bitter root grows and grows until it eventually defiles many others through a wake of bitterness. If bitterness is allowed to take root, we become imprisoned to it. God's grace will no longer have as great an effect in our lives. We become ineffective, insensitive, and spiritually dead. We can even become physically ill from it. God does not live in bitterness. He lives in grace. He has provided grace for every person to walk in.
One day I was challenged to deal with an individual who hurt me terribly. I was faced with a decision. Would I choose bitterness, or would I choose grace? Oh, how my natural tendency was to choose bitterness. But God provided the courage to choose grace. With that grace came freedom - a freedom to love and even accept the person who was the source of such pain.
This is the real place where Christ's power is most revealed. We cannot live without His supernatural grace. Are you in need of grace today? It is there for the receiving. It will take courage to accept it and walk in it. This will be your step to freedom.
By O. Hillman
6 comments:
I've noticed the same thing; that if I let even a tiny bit of bitterness into my heart, it will grow and cause all kinds of problems. I have to choose forgiveness repeatedly. I have to consciously choose to not think on what the person who hurt me did when those thoughts come flooding back. To remind myself that by God's grace I've chosen to forgive, and then make myself think about something else.
Tracy:
We of the flesh are weak in the forgiveness and bitterness issues. We let it consume us till all forgiveness and love is abandoned and hate fills our hearts.
Only by having a great faith and closness with our Lord such as you do can we over come such feelings but it is hard.
In my case I tend to over analize the issue to the point that it consumes me and I loose focus on the words from scriptures relating to this. Another one of my dark issues that is an up hill battle for me to overcome. I guess I am not yet that perfect Christian I think I am yet.
"But God provided the courage to choose grace"
Amen to that! It does take a huge amount of courage to take that leap of faith and forgive.....sometimes we feel so vulnerable, don't we?
Thanks for popping in my world today! Nice to "meet" you!
Michelle:
Yes we are quite vunerable. Having faith in the Lord and let Him deal with it is certainly a blessing.
I have been there. Deeply hurt and embittered. Recently, it broke away. Just gone. I had been praying for God's strength to see me through this, and He did. I see now how much my bitterness tied myself and this person up in chains. I could see nothing good about this person. But that was never the point. They are God's to sort out, not me. I am here to love. I feel free and at peace.
I like how you write. It's good stuff.
Karina:
Thanks for dropping by.
Just a simple thing as bitterness can fester up and become demonic in our hearts which is what Satan loves to see in us. It means he has control in our lives and that is not what we want in following God's grace.
Sadly that has happened to me too many times.
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