The Root of Bitterness

by Rocky Fleming

Day 2: Identify the Source

The Root of Bitterness does not come naturally.  It is like an infectious disease that is introduced to a healthy body, such as a viral or bacterial infection.  It had a host, a culprit, an aggressor to infect us.  This culprit is likely a person or event that contaminates us with some kind of disappointment or hurt.  The offense may or may not be intentional, for people hurt us, anger us, disappoint us, betray us, lie to us, slander us, scheme against us, and in doing so, infect us with their own root of bitterness.  

They may not intend to do this.  You may not intend to do it.  But that is where it begins, and it happens to everyone sometime in our life.  We cannot be exempted from this infection.  I wish it weren’t so, for I would want all of my loved ones to avoid this pain and serious challenge in their life.  I would want most of all that I do not inflict these hurts, but I have done so and I likely will again without realizing it, for we are all flawed creatures who wound and who are wounded.  It is not the fact of if it will happen, for it is going to happen to us.  

Rather, it is what we do with it when it happens that is critical, for you see a healthy body will fight to reject any infection that comes into it as a natural defense.  It might take us down for a few days, but in the end a healthy body wins out.  But not when an infection incubates and grows stronger because there is no resistance in a body that is weak or malnourished.  It is the same when the poisonous root of bitterness takes root and then our life becomes entangled by it.  This is when damage is making its way to the surface of our life and infecting others.  This is when intensive care is required to keep it from infecting others and spreading the disease.  It becomes a priority.

It is said that bitterness is unforgiveness that has fermented.  This likely is caused because someone has emotionally taken something from us and we cannot get it back.  We want revenge, but we either cannot extract it or we will not do so and it then burns within us.  We seethe within and unforgiveness incubates into bitterness.  It grows bigger and we become more justified by how we feel.  This continues to be fuel to a poisonous, noxious flame within us and our life is corrupted by the bitterness.

There is a reason that Forgive, Forgiven, Forgiveness and Forgiving is mentioned up to 150 times in the Bible.  It is the effort of God to forgive us our sins against Him, and it is the effort of Jesus’s disciple to do the same with people who have sinned against us.  It requires effort.  We do not have to feel like it or want to do it.  As an example, I have had numerous surgeries and life saving medications that I did not feel like taking nor did I want them.  But my desire for good health and a life unhindered by disease required them.  It is the same with forgiveness.  

We might feel justified by our anger because someone stole an emotional part of us and by not granting forgiveness, in some way, we get even with him or her.  But in seeing it this way instead of obeying Jesus with granting forgiveness, we nurture this unforgiveness into bitterness, and it is this condition that will hurt us more than any person can.  It is not worth it and it will lead to a bitter fruit that many will reproduce because of our influence.

To eradicate a root of bitterness, we need to identify the source that started it and begin the process of forgiveness at this point.  Then the root starves and it eventually dries up.  There is some clean-up that we will address.  But, we must start at the root before we can deal with the fruit of bitterness.  More tomorrow about that fruit.