Hurts Are Healed In God’s Hands.
“Get rid of all bitterness.” Ephesians 4:31 NIV.
My thoughts and comments today are that,
“bitterness poisons one’s soul.”
Feelings and emotions are a beneficial experience of daily life, until they aren’t. But life without them would be bland. I differentiate between them in this way. To me, feelings seem more of a momentary mood than emotions are. Emotions linger longer. Emotions vary by their duration, either shortened or extended by your command or indulgence of those feelings.
Emotions can be positive or negative, either helpful or hurtful to yourself and others. Your projection of their meaning determines your expectation of their benefit or lack thereof. One of those unprofitable emotions is what the Bible describes as, “bitterness.” The Scriptures warn, “15See 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.” Read Hebrews 12:14-15 NIV. Bitterness is a feeling that can become an intransigent, negative emotion. Don’t fertilize something you don’t want to grow.
Bitterness begins innocently enough. Some minor offense occurs that leaves you struggling with feeling slighted, overlooked, or mistreated. It’s natural to reason: what does it hurt to recount how that should not have happened to me? Or what’s the harm of seeking comfort from sharing my hurt feelings and emotions with an understanding friend? No big deal, you say? But indulging bitterness will harm yourself and hurt others.
Hurt feelings become seed for negative and even more serious emotions, which eventually take root and produce fruit you never intended. Bitterness is deceiving, seeming at first to taste sweet. The aftertaste, however, is everything the name implies. I observe that the more a person indulges and expresses a negative emotion, the stronger it develops, the more it grows, and the larger the circle of people it touches. Hurt feelings easily become settled attitudes.
Watch out when your wrong attitude sows the seeds of bitterness. Bitterness destroys happiness, poisons hearts, and separates friends. Bitterness taints relationships. Indulging a bitter attitude eventually imposes on others.
Bitterness can be evidenced in a clouded countenance, tense features, over reactions, or a sharpness of words without apparent cause. The Bible advises, “watch diligently.” You are responsible for your attitudes and reactions. Guard your heart diligently. Choose your responses wisely. Your own happiness and spiritual well-being are at stake.
“Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, along with every form of malice. 32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.” Read Ephesians 4:30-32 NIV. Beware of any root of bitterness, however subtle or harmless it may at first seem. Bitterness poisons one’s soul.
Today, I pray for you to remember that hurts are healed in God’s hands.
Christian Communications 2019
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