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Re: BITTERNESS: Weeding Out the Poisonous Root
If you discover more than one resentment, and most of us do, choose one for the purpose of this workshop. Later you can apply these same steps to the others.
1. Make a list of all the good qualities and strong points about the person you resent. Make it a subject of prayer.
2. Try to figure out why the person acted in the way you resent. Often this understanding is the first step toward forgiveness. Ask yourself if he or she was deliberately doing those things to hurt you. If you had been in his shoes, would you have acted differently under the circumstances?
3. Make a commitment somewhat like this: "Lord, I know that my reactions to this person are wrong because they violate Your law of love. What he has done is not the point. I want to change my feelings but I can't do it on my own steam. I turn myself and all these reactions over to You. Teach me to forgive as You forgive."
4. Do not attempt to go to the person with the good news of your forgiveness until resentment is purged from your heart. I recall a patient who was struggling to forgive her husband for an infidelity early in their marriage. One day she triumphantly brought me a carbon copy of a letter she had, unfortunately, already delivered to him. "Dear Alex," the note began. "I hereby forgive you for..." Then followed a lengthy list of Alex's shortcomings and mistakes. It was obvious, even to her as she reread it, that the letter expressed not so much forgiveness as a desire to hurt.
5. Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with love for this person. If you do this persistently and sincerely, you will find the hot, angry, vengeful thoughts gradually replaced by concern and caring--and your world will be a far better place.
I'm Still Learning to Forgive--BY CORRIE TEN BOOM
--The author of "The Hiding Place" remembers the day she learned the full meaning of "love your enemies."
It was in a church in Munich that I saw him, a thin, light-haired man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear. It was 1947, and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives.
It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favourite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander's mind, I liked to think that that's where forgiven sins were thrown. "When we confess our sins," I said, "God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever."
The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room.
And that's when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: The huge room with its harsh overhead lights, the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor, the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister's frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were!
Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbrck concentration camp where we were sent.
Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: "A fine message, Frulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!"
And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course--how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?
But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. It was the first time since my release that I had been face to face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.
"You mentioned Ravensbrck in your talk," he was saying. "I was a guard in there." No, he did not remember me.
"But since that time," he went on, "I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Frulein,"--again the hand came out--"will you forgive me?"
And I stood there--I whose sins had every day to be forgiven--and could not. Betsie had died in that place--could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?
It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.
For I had to do it--I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: That we forgive those who have injured us. "If you do not forgive men their trespasses," Jesus says, "neither will your Father in Heaven forgive your trespasses."
I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality. Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that.
And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion--I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. "Jesus, help me!" I prayed silently. "I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling."
And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
"I forgive you, brother!" I cried. "With all my heart!"
For a long moment we grasped each other's hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God's Love so intensely as I did then.
And having thus learned to forgive in this hardest of situations, I wish I could say I never again had difficulty in forgiving! I wish I could say that merciful and charitable thoughts just naturally flowed from me from then on. But they didn't. If there's one thing I've learned at 80 years of age, it's that I can't store up good feelings and behavior--but only draw them fresh from God each day.
Maybe I'm glad it's that way. For every time I go to Him, He teaches me something else. I recall the time, some 15 years ago, when some Christian friends whom I loved and trusted did something which hurt me. You would have thought that, having forgiven the Nazi guard, this would have been child's play. It wasn't. For weeks I seethed inside. But at last I asked God again to work His miracle in me. And again it happened: First the cold-blooded decision to obey, then the flood of joy and peace. I had forgiven my friends; I was restored to my Father.
Then why was I suddenly awake in the middle of the night, hashing over the whole affair again? My friends! I thought. People I loved! If it had been strangers, I wouldn't have minded so.
I sat up and switched on the light. "Father, I thought it was all forgiven! Please help me to do it!"
But the next night I woke up again. The negative thoughts returned. They'd talked so sweetly too! Never a hint of what they were planning. "Father!" I cried in alarm. "Help me!"
His help came in the form of a kindly pastor to whom I confessed my failure after two sleepless weeks. "Up in that church tower, " he said, nodding out the window, "is a bell which is rung by pulling on a rope. But you know what? After the sexton lets go of the rope, the bell keeps on swinging. First ding then dong. Slower and slower until there's a final dong and it stops.
"I believe the same thing is true of forgiveness. When we forgive someone, we take our hand off the rope. But if we've been tugging at our grievances for a long time, we mustn't be surprised if the old angry thoughts keep coming for a while. They're just the ding-dongs of the old bell slowing down."
And so it proved to be. There were a few more midnight reverberations, a couple of dings when the subject came up in my conversation. But the force--which was my willingness in the matter--had gone out of them. They came less and less often and at last stopped altogether. And so I discovered another secret of forgiveness: That we can trust God not only above our emotions, but also above our thoughts.
And still He had more to teach me, even in this single episode. Because many years later, in 1970, an American with whom I had shared the ding-dong principle came to visit me in Holland and met the people involved. "Aren't those the friends who let you down?" he asked as they left my apartment.
"Yes," I said a little smugly. "You can see it's all forgiven."
"By you, yes," he said. "But what about them? Have they accepted your forgiveness?"
"They say there's nothing to forgive! They deny it ever happened. But I can prove it!" I went eagerly to my desk. "I have it in black and white! I saved all their letters and I can show you where--"
"Corrie!" My friend slipped his arm through mine and gently closed the drawer. "Aren't you the one whose sins are at the bottom of the sea? And are the sins of your friends etched in black and white?"
For an anguishing moment I could not find my voice. "Jesus," I whispered at last, "Who takes all my sins away, forgive me for preserving the evidence against others all these years! Give me grace to burn all the blacks and whites as a sweet-smelling sacrifice to Your glory."
I did not go to sleep that night until I had gone through my desk and pulled out those letters--curling now with age--and fed them all into my little coal-burning grate. As the flames leaped and glowed, so did my heart. "Forgive us our trespasses," Jesus taught us to pray, "as we forgive those who trespass against us." In the ashes of those letters I was seeing yet another facet of His mercy.
When we bring our sins to Jesus, He not only forgives them, He makes them as if they had never been.
The Peace We Found in Forgiveness--BY JAY MECK
--This Pennsylvania farm couple turned heartbreak into a special kind of triumph
As I finished the milking that Friday afternoon in October, I was glad it was done early, for now I would have time to do some other chores before supper and we'd be able to make the pet parade at the New Holland Fair.
I knew how the boys yearned to see that parade, especially our youngest, little Nelson, seven, who'd be home from school any minute. I poked my head out of the barn door. No sign of Nelson yet, but I did see my wife Ruth coming out of the basement. She had been storing sweet potatoes for winter. Now she would be preparing an afternoon snack for Nelson, most likely that gingerbread he liked so much.
Putting away the milk pails, I thought how nice it was that as a farmer I could be at home during the day to enjoy my family. I loved it when Nelson bounded up our farm lane from school. He'd come back to the barn to tell me what happened that day, his freckled face beaming. Then he'd scurry over to the house to get a nibble from Ruth and dash back down the lane to wait for his older brother Johnny to come home from school. When Johnny appeared, Nelson never failed to say, "Ha-ha, I got home before you. What took you so long?" Then the two of them would race back up to the house.
Just then I heard someone running up the lane. Expecting Nelson, I came out of the barn only to be faced with his school-bus driver, Mike.
"Nelson's been hit by a car!" Mike yelled frantically. "Call an ambulance!"
My head suddenly felt light. Ruth yelled from the kitchen door that she would call one.
I tore off wildly down the lane to the road. My heart was racing like a tractor in the wrong gear. My mind was in a tailspin. Please, Lord, not Nelson! I thought. Who could have done this? Who?
When I reached the road I pushed my way through the crowd already gathered near the school bus. There on the blacktop of Highway 340 lay my son. I bent down and touched him softly. He didn't move. As I brushed back a fold in his hair, tears stung my eyes.
Just down the highway a car was pulled over and I saw the license plate--the orange and blue colours of New York.
The area where we live--the Dutch country of southeastern Pennsylvania--attracts a goodly number of tourists and some of them don't have a very good reputation among us natives.
I stood up over Nelson and in a choking voice asked, "Who hit him?"
There was a silence until finally a young dark-haired man and a woman who looked to be his wife stepped forward. They seemed frightened and dazed.
"He just ran out in front of us," the woman said, clutching tightly to the man's arm.
I walked over to them. I'm not a man of violence--in fact I've never so much as laid a finger on anyone. Yet my arms felt heavy and my hands tingled. I took a deep breath, unsure of what I should do. "Jay Meck's my name," I said finally.
The man flinched, but shook hands with me. Just then the ambulance pulled up and its driver urged Ruth and me to follow. As we drove away, I looked back to see the couple holding on to each other, staring after us.
On our way to Lancaster Hospital we passed an Amish family, preserved in tranquility in a horse and buggy. The New Yorkers, I thought, had intruded upon that kind of peacefulness. They had come here where they didn't belong.
At the emergency room, Dr. Snow, the man who delivered all our boys, met us immediately and said what I'd suspected all along. "Nelson's gone."
The next hours, even days, became a blur. We were besieged with cards and letters. Scores of friends and neighbors dropped by to help with the milking. They brought pies and casseroles. But even surrounded by all the sympathy, Ruth and I found we just couldn't keep little Nelson from our thoughts. He meant too much to us.
Nelson had come into our lives late, almost as if he were a special gift from God. Being the youngest, I suppose we held him precious and delighted in him more. But oh, how much there was to delight in! The Sunday-school librarian called him "Sunshine" because he always had a cheerful disposition and a smile that never seemed to go away. What was more extraordinary about our son was his understanding of Christianity. He had an uncanny sense of caring for others.
In school, for instance, he was the little guy who made friends with all the unfortunates--the cripples, the shy children, the outcasts. In the evenings when I'd go to his room to tuck him in, Nelson would be lying in bed with his hands folded. "Boy, Pop," he'd say, "there's sure a lot of people I've got to pray for tonight."
Like other small children, Nelson would squirm in church, but he would then startle Ruth and me by marching out after services and announcing, "I have Jesus in my heart." Later, he'd show me a sick bird he'd found and wanted to help or he'd bring a stranger to our home, some poor soul seeking farm work.
Though older, Bob, 18, and Johnny, 15, were extremely close to their brother. The following Tuesday, when the funeral was over and we were sitting in our kitchen, Johnny recalled Nelson's daily vigil at the lane after school. "I'll bet Nelson's up in Heaven right now and when I get there he'll say, `Ha-ha, Johnny, I got home before you. What took you so long?'"
Johnny's words tore into my heart. Ruth's and my grief was compounded when we discovered how senseless our son's death really was. Nelson didn't die through a car's mechanical failure or by natural causes. Perhaps we could have accepted that. No, Nelson died because someone had not stopped his car for a school bus that was unloading children.
Much to our dismay, the man turned out to be a New York City policeman, a person we thought would know the law about stopping for buses with blinking lights. But he hadn't. Both he and his wife had been taken to the police station here where he had then been arrested. After posting bond, trial was set for January 17, three months away.
Why, Ruth and I agonized, hadn't this man been more careful? Why couldn't he have waited? The whole thing was so pointless. The more we thought about it the more it filled us with anguish. And our friends' and neighbors' feelings only seemed to add fuel to our torment.
"I sure hope that guy gets all that's coming to him," a man told me one day in the hardware store.
"You're going to throw the book at him, aren't you?" another asked.
Even the school authorities, hoping to make a case out of stopping for school buses, urged us to press charges.
Ruth and I were beside ourselves. As Christians, we had received the Lord's reassurance that Nelson was now in eternal life. But how, we cried out, were we to deal with the man whose negligence caused so much heartache?
A few weeks after Nelson's funeral, an insurance adjustor called on us to clear up matters concerning the accident. He mentioned he had visited the New York couple shortly before.
"They seem broken up," he added.
They're broken up? I thought. What about all the tears we've shed?
Yet a certain curiosity--perhaps a desire for an explanation--led Ruth and me to ask if it would be possible for us to meet with them.
The insurance man looked at us oddly. "You really want to see them?"
"Yes," I said.
He agreed to act as intermediary, and to our surprise, the couple, whose names were Frank and Rose Ann, accepted our invitation to come for dinner the Monday before Thanksgiving.
As the day drew closer, I became more dubious. Could I really face them again? Why were we putting ourselves up to this?
Ruth and I prayed long and hard about it. Night after night we asked the Lord to provide us with His strength and guidance when they arrived.
When the day came--just a month-and-a-half after our son's death--I looked out the kitchen window to see a car coming up our lane through a light rain. My hand trembled as I reached for the kitchen door to let them in.
We gathered in the living room and the conversation was forced. After comparing country life to city life, everything we talked about seemed to be an outgrowth of the tragedy.
But in talking with them, I began to notice something strange. A feeling of compassion came over me.
Frank was a policeman who'd been on the force eight years. He had a spotless record, but the accident, he said, might cost him his job. As a member of the tactical force in a high crime area of Brooklyn, Frank put his life on the line for others every day. He worked hard at his job, certainly as hard as I did on the farm.
And Rose Ann, like Ruth, had three children at home. She had looked forward to their vacation last October--their first trip away from the city since their marriage. But now she was worried. The New York papers had printed an account of the accident and because of it, they were staying with Rose Ann's parents, fearful of facing their neighbors.
"I just don't know what's going to happen," Frank said. His eyes, like his wife's, seemed vacant. Both had lost a great deal of weight.
At dinner, we ate quietly. It was while we were having coffee that they noticed a picture that hung on the kitchen wall, a chalk drawing of Jesus and the lost sheep.
"Nelson loved to look at that," Ruth said. "His faith, like ours, was important." She went on to explain how she and I had grown up in a local church and how we both were long-time Sunday-school teachers at our Mennonite church.
"But it's more than a church," Ruth said. "You've really got to live out your beliefs every day."
Frank and Rose Ann nodded. After dinner we drove them around for a while, showing them a wax museum and a schoolhouse, sights they'd meant to see on their first trip here.
After they left, Ruth and I faced each other at the kitchen table. We had suffered, we knew, but surely not as much as that couple was suffering. And the strange thing was, I could now understand their suffering. Frank, like me, was human. Though he came from a different background--a big city that I didn't understand--he was a human being, with all the faults and frailties I had. He had made a mistake that anyone could have made. Jesus Christ was a man too--the Perfect Man--and through Him I could see that hatred or vengeance was not the way to handle that mistake--certainly not if Ruth and I professed to live out our faith every day.
Frank and Rose Ann, I could see now, were those lost sheep in the picture, and that's why they were brought back to our house. Only through Ruth's and my compassion--only through our employing the kind of love Jesus stood for--could we find peace and they find their way home.
Realising that, on January 17, at the trial, I did not press charges. Except for a traffic fine, Frank was free.
Ruth and I still correspond with the couple. We hope to visit them in New York City someday soon, for we want to see the city, see them again and meet their three children.
Though Nelson is gone, even in death he continues to teach us something about life. Not long ago I found a little pencil box of his. As I emptied it, a scrap of paper fell out. On it was "Jeremiah 33:3," a verse Nelson was to memorize for a skit. "Call unto Me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not."
I have to believe that Nelson, in his brief life, discovered some of those mighty things, especially the greatness of God's Love and how we must spread it around to others.
When Ruth and I called out to God, His message was just as powerful. No matter how deep the wound of sorrow is, forgiveness and faith in God will provide the strength to "occupy till Christ returns," (Luk.19:13) and the broken pieces of our lives will be made whole in Him.
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The Bible on Bitterness
DEFINITION OF BITTERNESS: Holding on to or showing feelings of intense (strong) animosity (hatred, anger), resentment or vindictiveness (wanting to get back at someone).--Other words that describe it are: Merciless, unforgiving, holding a grudge. Bitterness is also described as feelings resulting from something that is difficult to accept.
1. God's Word warns us against the dangers of bitterness.
Hebrews 12:15
Be on guard against it, because even a little root of bitterness can do much harm to you and others. Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled (contaminated).
Acts 8:22,23
Bitterness is a sin to be repented of. 22 Repent therefore of this thy wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee. 23 For I perceive that thou art in the gall (wrath, anger, trial) of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.
Colossians 3:19
Husbands (and all of God's children), love your wives (each other), and be not bitter against them.
James 3:14
Bitterness is nothing to be proud of. But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the Truth.
2. Do not carry or keep bitterness, but replace it with love, kindness and forgiveness.
Leviticus 19:18
Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear (carry or keep) any grudge (bitterness) against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself: I am the Lord.
Ephesians 4:31,32
31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour (shouting or crying), and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice (desire to do harm): 32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
Matthew 6:14,15
14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive you: 15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Matthew 18:23-35
In His parable of the unmerciful servant, Jesus made it clear that we will suffer if we refuse to sincerely forgive our brethren. 35 So likewise shall My Heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.
1Peter 4:8
Even if someone has mistreated or "wronged" you, God's Love is love enough to forgive. And above all things have fervent love among yourselves: for love shall cover the multitude of sins.
3. If you allow bitterness a place in your heart, it will eventually come out of your mouth in murmuring and complaining.
Job 7:11
Job said, Therefore will I not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
Romans 3:14b
Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. (See also
Matthew 12:34b.)
4. The Lord, in His Love, can deliver you from the sin of bitterness.
Isaiah 38:17
I had great bitterness: but Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for Thou hast cast all my sins behind Thy back.
5. Since bitterness stems from feelings of anger and an unforgiving attitude towards others, here are some more solutions from the Word on how to avoid it.
Ephesians 4:26b,27
26b Let not the sun go down upon your wrath (don't harbour anger over night); 27 Neither give place to the Devil.
Matthew 5:23,24
23 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought (grievance) against thee (or vice versa); 24 Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
Mark 11:25
And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in Heaven may forgive you your trespasses.
Colossians 3:13
Forbearing one another, and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye.
Philippians 3:13
Bitterness is also caused by holding on to bad or angry feelings about someone or something that happened, but the Lord tells us to forget the things that are past: Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.
Romans 12:2
God's Word often speaks of "renewing our minds," which implies letting go of the old; particularly any past grievances and bitternesses. And be not conformed to this World: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
Ephesians 4:23
And be renewed in the spirit of your mind.
Romans 8:28
Bitterness is also described as the feelings resulting from something that is difficult to accept; so it's important to always remember that the Lord has a good purpose in everything that He allows to happen to us. We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose.
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I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people -- for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. 1 Timothy 2:1-4
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