Bitterness Is a Bad Deal That Makes Big Promises
IT WAS A CARD to wish someone a happy birthday.
This kind of celebration is good. It’s saying, “I love you and I love that I have this marked moment, prompting me to bring out my sentiments from all the places they sit in my heart and mind. I’ll write them, speak them, give voice to them, and take them from sitting in my heart to dancing in yours.”
It’s a lovely exchange. And, usually, cards are so very connecting in this way.
But this card, this “celebration,” was different.
It felt required. It felt a bit forced. It was a hard choice because the person was no longer in my life. They had not been abusive. But when I needed them most, they’d been strangely absent. And they’d recruited others to be the same, which hurt even more.
So, in a deep-down place, I decided this person no longer got to hold space in my heart, in my calendar, or on my list of cards to be sent on the required holidays.
But there we were making an exception. I was making space for them, and I wasn’t entirely sure why.
It was a nice card, one that would require extra postage.
Art and I bought it before heading to dinner. Over arugula with shaved parmesan, we’d decided together what to write inside. We discussed the right way to word the sentiments so they’d be kind and true. We sat there before sealing the envelope, looking down at it, each holding our own thoughts and our own feelings of loss.
I looked at Art as if to say, “Okay.”
And then at some point, Art sealed the envelope. I put a stamp on the outside and then added not one but two extra. I wasn’t sure what was meant by “extra postage required,” but surely this would cover it. I remember thinking, Wow . . . look at me. I’m being the bigger person here. I sure am doing well with all this healing stuff. (I am rolling my eyes at me as much as you are right now.)
We acknowledged once again that sending this card was the right thing to do, even though it had been years since we’d heard from this person. Then, after dinner, we drove to the post office and dropped the blue card in the blue postal box and that was that.
I thought, This was good and right, until about an hour later.
I read an email with some frustrating news that was totally unrelated to the person we’d sent the card to earlier. Someone hadn’t properly done a job I had paid them to do, and now they were billing me for the extra time it would take to fix their mistake. And they were being snarky about having to fix their mistake, almost implying that it was my fault.
Normally, this would have just prompted a simple phone call to the person who’d sent the bill. It would have been a practical discussion of the issue at hand. But, instead, everything rational inside of me felt paralyzed. I felt wronged. I felt taken advantage of and angry in a way that was way out of proportion for this situation. Thankfully, I didn’t respond to the email in that moment.
But unfortunately, that feeling of “wrong” was like a magnet calling forth every other feeling of undealt-with wrongs. They all made their way through the corridors of my heart and mind, ready to locate and congregate with each other, multiplying their impact like a frenzied mob.
Though the person I’d sent the card to had nothing to do with the unexpected bill, the emotion I was feeling was connecting the two events as one.
And as hard as I tried not to connect everything to the present hurt I was still processing from all the marriage hurt, it all got stirred up together. Life suddenly felt completely overwhelming. It felt as if the world was against me and the pain would never go away.
I didn’t want to tie all these things together and get pulled into spinning emotions. I was trying to keep things in perspective. But I was losing my fight to stay calm.
Wrongs we deem were never made right are incredibly stealthy in their ability to sit, quietly seething, until that one more wrong done to us gives them permission to finally scream.
I felt an intense rush of emotion. I knew I was going to have a bad reaction, and as much as I didn’t want to admit it, bitterness was boiling up.
Our reactions are manipulated by the lens of unresolved past hurts. Bitter lens. Bitter reaction.
The individual circumstances that march our way each day cannot be controlled. And while we all know we are in control of our own reactions, when deep pain gets poked, it’s only natural for our reaction to be more of a reflex of past hurts than a spiritually mature calmness. Right?!
My counselor, Jim Cress, often says, “If our reaction is hysterical, it is historical.” We can feel so very out of control if bitterness and resentments are part of how we’ve recorded events in our history.
Resentment is usually attached to a specific person for a specific incident. Bitterness is usually the collective feeling of all our resentments. But however you define those words, they are part of the same problem.
Bitterness isn’t just a label we place on people and the feelings around the hurts they cause. It is like liquid acid seeping into every part of us and corrupting all it touches. It not only reaches unhealed places, but it also eats away at all that is healed and healthy in us. Bitterness leaves nothing unaffected. Bitterness over one thing will locate bitterness hiding inside of us over other things. It will always intensify our reactions, skew our perspective, and take us further and further away from peace.
The person I sent the card to wasn’t standing in the room when I got that unrelated email. But the hurt they caused me was very much standing right there, ratcheting up my emotions and clouding my ability to rationally process the email. The lens of bitterness made me even more bitter.
I was trying to do right things without taking the step of forgiving.
Me not forgiving the people who hurt me was agreeing to bring the hurt they caused into every present-day situation I was in—hurting me over and over and over again. Holding on to this hurt wasn’t diminishing my pain. It was multiplying it. And it was manipulating me to become someone I didn’t want to be. So, instead of making anything right, it was just making everything even more wrong—me, them, the whole situation.
The enemy of our soul loves the way bitterness blocks healing for us and prevents the goodness of God from being put on display.
I’ve never seen a bitter person and thought, Wow, I want to know more about the hope of God in their life. I’m not being harsh; I’m trying to make the bitter parts of me be more honest and self-aware about what’s really going on. And how hurtful bitterness really is.
All bitterness is corrosive. It eats away at our peace. And most of us aren’t making the connection that the heaviness and unsettledness that ebbs and flows in our lives is evidence of unforgiveness.
I wasn’t making the connections between my past hurts and my present intense reaction.
I couldn’t make sense of my feelings.
It was the email.
It was the person we’d sent the card to.
It was the people they’d recruited who’d compounded the pain of the entire situation.
It was the fact that none of these people who’d caused so much hurt were ever held accountable for their actions.
It was the fact that I’d tried to forgive but obviously hadn’t.
It was that I secretly wanted a moment where I could hear Art defend me and make these people acknowledge how wrong they were.
But that wasn’t all. I just didn’t know what else it was. All I knew was that it all had to come out right then and there.
That’s the inconvenient reality of emotional pain. It won’t respect our schedule. We can’t time the triggers. So we start to believe we can’t tame our reactions.
I didn’t want to have a meltdown at that moment. Art and I had plans to have a fun evening after dinner to watch the sunset, maybe watch a movie, and just be together. So, why was I suddenly threatening to derail the entire evening? It’s not what I wanted, and yet it was all I wanted at the very same time.
No matter how much rationality my brain kept trying to interject, my feelings marched forward as if they were picketing for justice and plowing over anything that stood in their way.
In a declarative statement that rivaled a prosecutor’s closing argument made while pounding a table full of surefire evidence, I declared, “I just need to know that you acknowledge the pain these people caused me. Their choices were wrong and hurtful and so selfish. And I don’t even know that they know how wrong they were. I thought I was in a good place with this, but now I’m not, and I’m confused and hurt all over again. And now I’m angry that they didn’t just hurt me years ago; they are hurting me all over again tonight, which makes me feel ‘not healed’ and exposed and frustrated. I need you to defend me. I need to hear you make this right!!”
Art listened. And then he calmly asked, “Lysa, are you angry that you haven’t seen evidence of God defending you?”
And there it was.
A moment of absolute clarity. A statement posed as a question rising above the chaos, above my dogmatic demands for answers and justice and fairness.
Was this about God?
I hated that Art asked this question. And I loved that he asked the question. It felt good that he was so in tune with my real feelings. But it also felt slightly threatening that he was so in tune with my real feelings.
I felt more exposed than ever. But I also felt more seen than ever.
Deep pain is excellent at revealing a truer truth than our soul ever dares to admit.
I swallowed, hard.
I tasted a bitter reality promising to be a sweet truth if only I would admit what was really real.
“Yes, that’s why I’m angry. I don’t understand why God hasn’t shown those people how wrong it was to do what they did and to feel convicted by all the devastation they caused.”
Art then asked, “How do you know that He hasn’t?”
Refusing to tidy up my answer, I blurted out, “Because they haven’t ever come back to me to acknowledge it or apologize.”
Art calmly replied, “And maybe they never will. But that’s not evidence against God. It’s just where they are in the process.”
I didn’t know whether to throw a temper tantrum. Throw up. Or throw out a white flag and surrender to this process.
The process.
They have a process. But so do I. And I think it’s time for me to make progress in my own process.
I felt my fist unclench.
And I wondered just how long it had been since I’d truly relaxed.
There is a lot of wisdom in what Art said. And as I’ve let it sit with me, I’ve realized there’s something else that needs to be added into my process. My humility.
Humanity without humility makes true forgiveness impossible.
Humanity rises up and demands that I be declared the right one, the good one, the victimized one. But never has that made anything better for me; it’s only embittered me. Humility bows low and claims the greatest victory a human can ever grasp: God’s prize of peace.
I’ve never really related to the story of the prodigal son. I’m not really rebellious or prone to wasteful spending. But there are two brothers in the story, and after rereading it, I really wish it was called “the prodigal sons.” Both were rebellious. One was just more obvious than the other. One was wayward. The other resentful. But it was the one with resentment who wound up being most resistant to the father in the end. He was so consumed with what his brother had taken, he couldn’t see the bigger picture of what the father was doing. Let’s take a look at the end of the parable:
The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!”
“My son,” the father said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” (Luke 15:28–32)
Humanity without humility makes true forgiveness impossible.
As I notice that the father reminds the brother, “everything I have is yours,” I hear God reminding me, “Turn to me. Trust me. Entrust this whole situation to me. I am doing a bigger work than you know. You don’t really want revenge. You want healing. You don’t really want more chaos. You want peace. You don’t really want them to suffer. You just don’t want to be hurt again.”
Bitterness is a bad deal that makes big promises on the front end but delivers nothing you really want on the back end. Only God has what I really want. Turning my heart over to bitterness is turning away from God.
So I bow low. . . . not because I want to. Because I need to.
“God, I give this situation to You. I release my evidence of all the reasons they were so wrong. I release my need to see this person punished. I release my need for an apology. I release my need for this to feel fair. I release my need for You to declare me right and them wrong. Show me what I need to learn from all of this. And then give me Your peace in place of my anger.”
Again, ask me if I wanted to pray this prayer. Absolutely not. But I’m going to pray it over and over until the beauty of it and the rightness of it start to settle into me.
Please understand, I’m not taking away your choice by writing this. Nor am I saying your feelings are bad. Feelings are incredibly helpful indicators of what needs to be addressed.
You absolutely still have the choice to be angry. And I’m the last person in the world who will think less of you. Remember, I’m the girl who is still fresh off of a meltdown. But can I invite you into my choice?
I have a choice to keep adding my anger and resentment into the equation, or I can make the rare choice to add in my own humility. My anger and resentment demands that all the wrongs are made right. It also keeps me positioned to get emotionally triggered over and over. My humility wants something even better: peace.
And if I have peace, isn’t that the best of all possible outcomes?
Adding my humility into the situation acknowledges the unfairness I have felt but affirms a trust in God to do what He needs to both in their hearts and mine.
My peace has been held hostage by their refusal to apologize for long enough. Why they aren’t apologizing could be because of many reasons:
•They have been so hurt by other situations caused by people who hurt them that they are swallowed up in blinding pain.
•They don’t care they hurt me.
•They don’t even know they hurt me.
•They were protecting themselves from some unresolved pain I’ve caused them.
•They are currently swallowed up in some kind of sin preventing them from feeling empathy for hurt they cause.
•They feel justified, because they truly feel I deserved what I got.
•They don’t consider what they did as wrong.
•They’ve been given bad advice.
•A bunch of other reasons that are complicated.
But, at the end of the day, me spending time processing their reasoning doesn’t help me move forward. So, what does?
Romans 12:18 teaches, “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all” (ESV). There’s some interesting context around this verse that is worth understanding and considering. Stick with me here as we unpack some very interesting Bible history.
Paul was writing this instruction to the Jewish and Gentile churches that were experiencing persecution by the Romans. Paul himself was facing Roman persecution all around him. Everything he was teaching that was calling people to holiness with God was causing disruptions in the existing political, social, and religious systems of the day.
As he was converting people to the gospel, one of those disruptions was that Paul was calling them away from participating in anything that had to do with idols. In Acts 19:26, Paul is quoted as saying, “gods made with hands are not gods” (ESV). The silversmith, Demetrius, was highly upset because the sale of these idols brought in a lot of money. Both the loss of income and the discrediting of a god they were used to worshipping infuriated those people profiting from this religious system. So they rioted against Paul and drove him out of the city.
These are the kinds of experiences Paul had had when he wrote his letter to the churches in Rome. Paul didn’t write what became the book of Romans while on a peaceful vacation with peaceful people and peaceful circumstances. He wrote this instruction in the midst of his third missionary journey full of opposition and persecution.
One of the reasons for his letter to the Romans was that peace would not have been easy. It would have felt as unnatural to them as it does for us in the midst of constant hardships, never-ending opposition, and relational differences. Yet Paul was reminding everyone who would read these verses that peace was possible.
I relate to this so much. It seems I wake up each day with a new set of issues. Conflicts seem to never end. In a world that appears so bent toward being offended and angry, how is this kind of peace possible?
The Greeks thought of peace as the absence of hostility.1 But Paul is teaching that peace is the atmosphere we can bring into hostility. This peace is a wholeness we have because of our relationship with God. The Hebrew word for peace is shalom. It’s interesting to note that shalom is the word that Hebrew-speaking people use even today in their salutations with others both coming and going.
It’s bringing peace into their greeting and leaving with peace as the last word in their goodbyes. I want more of this. Which means I can’t wait for others to bring me peace. I need to make the decision to bring an atmosphere of peace, shalom, into every situation I’m placed in.
Yes, this is so hard. And yes, I still find myself resistant to it.
But this is so good for me. This peace isn’t conjured up by us; it is evidence of Jesus in us. Changing us. Shifting us. Healing us.
Remember, John 14:27 quotes Jesus, saying, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (ESV).
The peace being referred to here is “to keep or maintain peace.” Peace is a gift that God gives believers, and that gift is evidence to the world that we are different. To live peaceably in our world today seems like such a ridiculous impossibility.
But when the impossible is made possible because of Jesus in us, there’s no greater testimony that can be shared. There is nothing more powerful to bring into a situation than the Prince of Peace Himself (Isaiah 9:6). At just the utterance of the name of Jesus, peace is there.
And don’t miss the context of all of this. Paul doesn’t say, “As far as it depends on other people bringing peace.” Nor does he say, “As long as the conflicts end in a peaceful way.”
No, he says, “So far as it depends on me.”
In other words, peace in my life isn’t being prevented by other people’s choices. It’s made possible by my choices.
Many theologians believe Paul is echoing Jesus’ reference to Christians keeping their distinctiveness that sets us apart from the world in Mark 9:50: “Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will you make it salty again? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another” (ESV). This doesn’t mean being “salty” in the slang way of saying being offended. It’s the opposite. It’s letting our Christlike attitude be our flavoring and our preservative of peace, both to fellow Christians and to the world.
This truly is possible, but only if we surrender our offenses daily, keep our hearts swept clean of bitterness, and remain humble even when we are hurt. And that’s when I just want to lie down on the floor in a very dramatic way and loudly declare, “BUT I AM NOT JESUS!!”
Ugh. However, as hard as this seems, I think it’s harder to keep letting circumstances and complicated people kidnap my peace. It’s not just hurting me; it’s hurting everyone. Remember how I said that bitterness leaks out like acid? The stain of bitterness doesn’t end at the tips of my fingers . . . it leaks onto every person I touch.
Hebrews 12:14–15 reminds us, “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.” This defilement transfer contaminates those closest to us. It’s not just personal . . . it’s corporate. It never just impacts me.
So, while this teaching can feel challenging, it’s also eye-opening and empowering. I always thought that peace was possible when there was an absence of chaos.
Now, I’m realizing the antithesis of peace isn’t chaos. It’s selfishness. Mine and theirs. Self-care is good. Self-centeredness is not.
The human heart is so very prone to focus on selfish desires to the expense of others. But since I can only change me, I’ll be honest as I look at my own propensities toward selfishness. And the very best way for me to uninvite selfishness is in the humility of forgiveness.
Peace is the evidence of a life of forgiveness.
It’s not that the people all around you are peaceful or that all your relationships are perfectly peaceful all the time. Rather, it’s having a deep-down knowing that you’ve released yourself from the binding effects of the constricting force of unforgiveness and the constraining feelings of unfairness.
You’ve traded all that drama for an upgrade.
Peace.
Living in the comfort of peace is so much better than living in the constraints of unforgiveness.
Think about how good it feels to take off clothes when the waistband is tight or the formality of an outfit won’t allow you to truly exhale and relax. Taking those clothes off to put on your comfy clothes is releasing yourself from the binding effects of more constricting clothes. You exhale. You feel more comfortable. You settle down and settle in. Your body is set up to be at peace.
We need to do this same kind of activity with the unforgiveness constricting our thoughts to a space too small and pinching our possibilities for more. Holding on to thoughts of resentment is like pulling a belt so tight across the middle of our thoughts that it prevents us from ever completely relaxing and resting and certainly makes future growth near to impossible. This constricting force in your thought life will be a barrier to you being able to let go of the pain of what’s been done to you. You’ll be reminded constantly of the person or event that hurt you, and the pain will be just as intense as it was on the day it happened.
Not forgiving someone isn’t teaching the other person a lesson, nor is it protecting you in any way. It’s making the choice to stay in pain. It’s ratcheting the already too-tight belt tighter and tighter with each remembrance. Undealt-with pain and a mind at peace cannot coexist.
And if we have any chance at all of living at peace with others, we’ve got to first live at peace within ourselves.
So, is there ever a place for vindication? Justice? Fairness? Keep reading the verses of Romans 12.
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. (Romans 12:19–21 ESV)
Which brings me back to the card.
I knew we were to send it. But when we placed it in the box, my emotions had not yet voted yes. And that’s okay. Our emotions will sometimes be the very last to sign on to these Bible verses.
The card we sent felt like I was just going through the motions of cooperating with holidays that demand cards. Forcing niceties. Violating my need to not make space for this person who hurt me.
But maybe it wasn’t going through the motions. Maybe it was walking out obedience.
This card was all part of the process.
I don’t have to know if it will ever make a difference in their life. It made a difference in mine. It’s part of my process of cooperating with God. Overcoming evil with good. Living at peace so long as it depends on me.
Leaving room for God to work on them. Praying for the mercy of God. Seeking the face of God. Knowing the goodness of God. Living in the presence of God.
And in that, I’m seeing the beauty of God. I guess today it’s a blue card in a blue mailbox sent by a heart that’s now a little less bruised. A little less blue. A little more healed.
And a lot more set up for peace.