The Weeds of Bitterness

This weekend my husband and I did yardwork. I was amazed at how quickly the weeds were taking over! Didn't we just do this a month ago?- I thought.

As we were pullings weeds and sweating away in the backyard, it was as if the Lord were speaking to my heart, giving me an object lesson on a very important spiritual principle. The principle of forgiveness.

I saw a parallel between the activity of pulling the weeds before they choke the life out of our good plants, and a verse from the Bible. Hebrews 12:15 says (NIV) "See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many".

Bitter root? Then I looked at the weeds I was having to pull up by their roots. I had to muster all the strength I could find to get some of them. Some were even disguising themselves by mixing in with the good plants. How insidious!- I thought.

How does bitterness grow up in our souls? Isn't it just like these wild weeds? You think you have your garden well tended, then one day all of the sudden....blamo! A huge weed threatens the life of a beautiful flower or fruit-bearing plant. When we are wounded in our souls, the wound scabs over, just like a physical wound. But if it is not healed and we entertain disappointment or nurse unforgiveness, whether it be toward another person, ourselves, or even God Himself, it starts to grow a bitter root. This root is bitter and it STINKS! Ever been around someone who does nothing but complains or is often feeling sorry for themselves? No one wants to be around a bitter root. Or do you often find yourself flying off into fits of rage, saying inapparopriate things in front of the kids or your spouse, or at other drivers on the road and wonder if an alien has taken over your body? Ever throw a tantrum and think you just can't stop yourself? You, my friend, (and sometimes I as well) are dealing with the bitter root of unforgiveness.

Stink Weed and its Root

Jesus said we would know a tree by it's fruit. A good tree could not produce bad fruit. And conversely, a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. I wonder sometimes if the stinky weeds of bitterness in our hearts are the thing that grows up and chokes off the good fruit and thus the good tree, not allowing us to bear good fruit in our lives. Sometimes we get into a rut and we just don't know how to get out. We think we have "forgiven and forgotten" someone or something and before we know it, there is a huge stinky root of bitterness we have to pull up. And we have to pull it up by it's ROOT (it's beginning point, or what I call the point of entry) in our souls. If we just take a weed wacker as a quick-fix and chop it off above ground, it will grow back faster and stronger. It must be dealt with at the root. I believe this involves 3 things: forgiving as an act of our will. Supernatural emotional and spiritual healing. And maintenance by walking in forgiveness on a regular basis.

Man's soul is comprised of three things: his mind, his will, and his emotions. Many people do the forgiving part from either their mind or their emotions, cutting off the weed above ground as a band-aid fix, and this is not effective. The person's will must be involved. This is good news because if we forgive as an act of our will, then the mind and emotions follow. Emotions are a funny thing. Many people say they cannot forgive someone because they cannot FEEL forgiveness toward that person. But it does not work that way. We can WILL to forgive someone, and over time, our emotions will line up with our will, and so does our mind (where the battle can become intense later). Let's look at it this way: God could have very well have decided to not forgive us (through the acceptable sacrifice of His son Jesus). He could have said, "They have offended me so badly, I just do not feel forgiveness toward them, therefore I cannot forgive them". If that were the case, we would have no hope. We would be in big trouble! But God DID forgive us, He made forgiveness available to each and every one of us who receives it through believing in Him, and what's more, because He did that, He made it mandatory for us to forgive others. Forgiving as an act of our will, despite how we feel, is the beginning of this. But there is another component.

The Healing Garden

Jesus said we must forgive our (offending) brother from our hearts. The heart is the seat of our emotional life and the Bible has much to say about this. It asks who can approach the holy hill of the Lord?- He who has clean hands and a pure heart. It also warns man to guard his heart with all diligence, for out of it flows the issues of life. If God wants us to take care of what goes into and out of our heart so much, don't you think He would have a plan for all the icky stuff (that is a complicated psychological term!) that happens to us? If God were to ask us to forgive our brother (Jesus says 70 times 7 times in a day- that's a lot!)....don't you think He would have a plan for all the hurt that was caused us? All the disappointment, hurt, and rejection?

Of course He would. He has a solution. Psalm 147:3 says, God "heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds". He Himself promises to heal our hearts! He heals the initial entry point, the root of hurt that causes the bitterness in the first place! Wait a minute, you mean to tell me that God heals us of EVERYTHING? Even when I was hurt so bad as a child by an authority figure (fill in the blank...a parent, a teacher, a boss...) Yes! Those are some of the toughest weeds to pull up...they've been growing there for so long. But God can heal even the most painful of hurts. He can replace the hole where the weed was pulled up and even make a beautiful fruit-bearing tree to grow in its place, creating a true healing garden to help other people. Isn't that great news? But He does not heal the things we cover up or deny, but rather only those we bring to Him by faith, by trusting that He will do what He says, for God cannot lie. So it is God Himself who deals with the second part of getting rid of the bitter root. The only thing we need to do is trust Him.


That's Some Serious Gardening!

Just how serious is God about this forgiveness thing, anyway? VERY serious. Jesus tells a parable (story) in Matthew 18 about a man who owed money to a ruler. He owed a great amount of money. Even so, after the man begged for mercy, the ruler decided to forgive the man's debt and let him go (in that day, if you couldn't pay your debt, you were thrown in jail until it could be paid). The man was very happy that he was shown mercy and forgiven. However, as he left jail, he came across another man whom he remembered owed him a small amount of money. Instead of forgiving the man's debt, as had been done for him, he demanded the man pay his debt and he threw him in jail. When the ruler found out about this, he became very angry with the man and threw him to the jailers. He said (essentially): How dare you! I forgave you of a large debt, yet you held this man accountable to pay his debt even though it was very small. Judgement had come upon the man for not forgiving the debt. What's interesting is that in the King James version, it says the man was delivered to the tormenters. So when we refuse to forgive, I believe it opens a door to the devil and his demons to torment us, whether it be in our mind, emotions, or to be able to rob us of our peace and our joy.

I have had to walk through the hard lesson of forgiveness many times. I had a lot of rejection and hurt growing up as a child. But I learned early on in my relationship with the Lord that if I was to be in close fellowship with Him, I had to forgive. And I am no expert yet. I constantly have to forgive someone for something. Sometimes daily. I believe we are called to walk in forgiveness and selfless love. I think of it as daily tending to my garden. I try to be sober and mindful to ask for healing when and where I need it, I forgive those who have trespassed against me, and I ask God for the grace to repent for all my wrongdoings (there are plenty, let me assure you!!). I ask Him to show me all these things in my heart that I cannot see, for the Bible also says the heart (of man) is deceiptfully wicked above all things and who can know it? But it is a very important place from the vantage point of the Lord. It is my heart...the place where I meet with the Lord daily. Shouldn't I want it to be clean and well tended? After all, no one would invite an important dignitary or leader to their home if their home were a filthy mess. And yet, sometimes as a Christian, I approach God in prayer or thought, asking Him to enter my garden which is overgrown with stink weeds. The creator of the universe!! Sometimes I can't hear him as well or know His perfect will for my life when my garden is overgrown. Those seem like dry times in my faith walk.

Sometimes all that is needed is a simple prayer to ask for His help in pulling those seemingly insurmountable weeds. It can make all the difference in the world. It can affect our own destiny or the destiny of our children or those we love. The key is to keep doing it and never start thinking we have arrived or that we are the ones who have done something great.