Beating Back Bitterness: Stephen Viars

So a lot of our listeners unfortunately or fortunately know the drama of our 10-year anniversary date. That's you know the basis of our vertical marriage book. But I want to ask you because you know I've heard you tell this story a thousand times of how you lost your feelings for me but when you describe what you felt you say you went from anger to resentment to bitterness.

Yes. Talk about that a little bit. Well it's interesting because it was different I remember when I was angry with you and like oh this is just wrong it felt wrong but then that anger turned to resentfulness like I'm mad at you but I'm also now resentful but then something happened in my heart that became toxic I feel like like it was poisoning every part of me that I didn't like you at all and nothing you could do would make me happy. Do you have you felt it because we lived that.

Yeah I'm smiling though because how could I think we were doing great. Welcome to Family Life Today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.

You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is Family Life Today. I mean I knew you were mad and you know we were yelling often as I was going to another church meeting but when you talk about bitterness I know that feeling so I'm like that's deeper that's inside and it's something that we carry and I don't think we know how to get rid of right so we're gonna talk about bitterness but more importantly how it affects our lives and how we can negotiate it and we have the man to do it with us today Steve Vires is with us he's written a book on bitterness overcoming bitterness but first of all let me say welcome to Family Life I think you're gonna help us and a lot of other people today. Well and I really hope that's true it's a delight to be here and my goal is just to point all of us to Jesus Christ and point us to the truth of the Word of God and he will never disappoint us will he?

No. And the great thing is there's hope in this topic it's a sad topic and I think about the men and women who might listen to this program and this one hurts but the good news is that there's a way out and our sweet Savior stands ready to help us overcome bitterness. Yeah and you know even as I read your book and I know you're not just an author you're actually I said this at lunch a very unique blend of you're a lead pastor of a church in Lafayette Indiana Hoosiers.

Absolutely. Go Ball State Cardinals. Faith Church. Yeah Faith Church in in Lafayette and yet you have this counseling side an event because you lead a counseling ministry you have I mean we sat at lunch and I heard all these amazing things you're doing in the counseling world have you found that's unique because I don't see a lot of lead pastors that are that gifted in that that side as well. One of the blessings that God gave me is to follow a mentor who had that same gift set and experience and what happened was as a pastor he became concerned because he was teaching the Word of God on Sunday but then he saw the members of the church throughout the rest of the week really struggling in their practical lives and he didn't know how to make the connection and by God's grace he received training and biblical counseling and it went from the church ministering to people one day a week to the church ministering to people seven days a week because they were able to take the truth from the sufficient Word of God and apply it to the real life hurts and and he even led the church not only to have a counseling center for people inside the church but for people in the community and so it's been a marvelous opportunity for us now 32 people have been trained and make hours available every week to people outside of our church family who are struggling that's become a marvelous source of outreach for our church family so as a pastor that gives me an opportunity to be talking to people who don't know the Lord on a regular basis or to be talking to people who are really struggling and and that then fuels the preaching side of things because preaching becomes preventative counseling and that's in the way I think about it a lot and it also has a sanctifying impact on me because you know as I have the opportunity to work with people in counseling I see myself big time and there's just no question that the Holy Spirit can multitask and so he's using counseling to convict me of ways that I need to change things that I need to work on and so it's just a great synergistic relationship and so I actually think that pastors are helped if whatever way they can if they'll be involved in the counseling room it's a good thing yeah I mean we're called to make disciples and you just sort of identified a missing link I think in a lot of us I know that I didn't I don't have that I have the mindset and I have the heart for it I'm not always gifted to understand that I'm always the guy saying so you got a problem quit doing that and they're like can I go see somebody else so it actually cares and can help me out of the the muck of this thing but and also we haven't even mentioned this also you're you're married three kids grandkids yes yeah so you've you're carrying a busy busy life but I think this topic I you know I got to tell you when I was reading your book overcoming bitterness moving from life's greatest hurts to a life filled with joy that's a big move it is from hurt not just to better to joy that's right I told down as I was reading I was like wow you know the bitterness I thought I was over in my life yeah it's still looming they're pretty big so let's talk cuz I mean I haven't seen a lot of books written about this you know you see forgiveness books and you talk a lot about that in the book but the center on the bitterness that's in our life help us understand sort of the root you know where's this come from where's how's it manifest itself in a person's life yeah and that's one of the things I love about the sufficiency of the Word of God so scripture doesn't just call upon us to change things behaviorally so it's not simply a start doing this or stop doing that and I'm so glad that we have a Savior who loves us much more comprehensively than that and so as I got into the study in the scripture of the topic of bitterness you find it played off in three very separate categories the first is the one that we just talked about bitter words or bitter behavior we all know what that feels like in fact the Hebrew word Mara means the poisonous bile from the gallbladder of all things so I love how God is just so picturesque we know what bitter speech is we know what bitter behavior is so that's one category that's very obvious to us but when you start unpacking the Word of God it uses that word group Mara in Old Testament picross in the New Testament the word bitter in two other categories and one that really surprised me was bitter circumstances now this is why none of us can say well I don't have any bitterness in my life sure we do because we live in a sin-cursed world and so bitterness in the Bible is not first something I do it's first something I face I face bitter circumstances every day every one of our listeners faces bitter circumstances every day so for example you have Joseph whose story comprises a rather significant percentage of the book of Genesis well on his daddy's deathbed he gathers all the brothers around and he starts making these pronouncements about what their lives were like and what their lives are going to be like and when he gets to Joseph he says the archers shot bitter arrows at you well you talk about an awkward moment I mean who's he talking about he's talking about Joseph's own brothers and here's what that tells us Joseph was not responsible for that bitterness was not first something he did it was first something that he faced that story also gives us great hope Joseph did not let the bitter treatment by his brothers make him a bitter person there's hope in that another example of that is Hannah Hannah struggled with infertility what what a terrible thing for a woman to have to face and yet the scripture says that her rival used to mock her about her infertility she would provoke her bitterly the Bible says well there's another example of how bitterness is not first something that I do it's first it's a condition that I face in this sin-cursed world we all face situations where people are treating us in an unjust fashion and Hannah by the way you can also add her quote-unquote pastor Eli who comes alongside her and sees her praying and accuses her of being drunk so you have one woman provoking her because of her inability to have a child and then you have her religious leader falsely accusing her but there's another example of why we can have hope because that didn't make Hannah a bitter woman in fact in the very next chapter she is giving this marvelous worship hymn to God so even though she had been treated in such a terrible way by the people around her that did not make her a bitter woman and Steve it feels like right now in our culture it feels like there's a lot of bitterness it feels like an epidemic absolutely cuz you're right so much is going on around us that bitterness can really take root well that's why I think we have to be spiritually authentic so if we just say well I don't have any bitterness that is not biblically correct because again bitterness is not something I do it's first a condition I face here's another example by the way it's a children of Israel where the Bible says that the Egyptians made their work bitter and there's a lot of people who are in work situations just like that day after day after day their boss is treating them unkindly their co-workers are treating them in an unjust fashion or just everything that goes on in a sin-cursed work environment and again it's bitter condition so so then you say okay Lord you've told me that in the Word of God thank you because that broadens my concept but then what's the connection point between bitter circumstances we all face and being a bitter individual that you've told us I shouldn't be and the answer is the third category it's our heart one of the most powerful verses on this topic is Proverbs 14 10 the heart knows its own bitterness and that's where all of this is played out but what goes on in my heart in the way I respond to unjust treatment to the way I respond to the disappointments in my life before anybody else knows about it before I speak a word about it the question is how do I process that in my heart and the beautiful thing is through the power of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ I can have a new heart I have the Holy Spirit working inside of me so in my heart in my inner person I can process these hurts in a way that doesn't just in a determinative fashion mandate that I become bitter in fact the scripture would suggest I can actually be growing in my sweet relationship with Christ as a result of the hurt in a way that prevents me from becoming a bitter person that's the goal and that's the hope so how do we because I hear you talk about the bitter heart and I think sometimes I'd love to say I have a friend who can't acknowledge that he has a bitter heart there's times in my life where I'm like oh I'm good yeah I'm not bitter about that and yet you know it'll reveal itself eventually but I think it's often we don't know it yeah our heart is giving us symptoms we can feel it but I think we live in this denial thing like I'm not bitter and some of us as followers of Christ we think that's sin to be bitter so do we live in a denial is it always apparent or is there something that gets triggered I was gonna say Dave it's so funny because you're gonna talk about my heart because Dave's great like I'm fine I'm good and I I know that you feel like you're really good because when you were trying to forgive your dad for leaving you for the alcoholism for the abandonment of your family I remember you couldn't even talk about your dad without having this emotion rise up and I said to you you know I think that I think forgive your dad she didn't say I think I'll never forget it and again I hadn't been able to identify we were early in our marriage so his first five six years but she literally said one day you know you're gonna need to forgive your dad and I looked there like today years ago yeah and then as I stepped away and said is there truth in what Ann said it was oh my goodness there's a hardened root in there yeah bitterness that you face yeah as you're saying but I couldn't see it until she sort of pointed out and then I'm like oh my goodness it's there yeah then the question and I know we're gonna get there eventually we don't need to get there immediately but what do I do with that yeah well and I think there's several very important biblical answers to the question how do I win the battle in my heart with these bitter circumstances and and one of the biggest answers from the Word of God is to learn to practice lament that the discipline of lament between me and the Lord you got to talk about that because I love that section of your book I don't think we understand lament so keep going well and I'm certainly not suggesting that I'm an expert on it I don't know if when you're talking about one book you ought to recommend somebody else's but my friend Mark Rogoff who's a pastor up at College Park Church in Indianapolis wrote a book called dark clouds deep mercy on the topic of lament and I quote it rather extensively in that section on my book because he just did such a marvelous service I think to the Church of Jesus Christ and one of the things that he points out is that you know at least a third of the Psalms in the Bible are lament Psalms and that's pretty fascinating when you think about it because Psalms that's our worship hymnal right isn't that supposed to be happy happy happy not if you read the Psalms honestly right and it's amazing how you hear God's people people who are being held up to us as examples of how you talk to the Lord they're practicing spiritual candor authenticity they're bringing their hurts right to the throne of grace they're bringing their questions in fact it's pretty close to they're bringing their complaints right to the throne of God and I think we have developed in an evangelical culture the belief that well you don't do that you don't ask questions you don't act as if there's some things that are troubling you you you you you just put on a plastic smile on a broken heart and act or for men well men don't admit that they're hurting big boys don't cry just rub some dirt on it etc etc not if we're gonna let the Bible be our guide we ought to follow the example of the psalmist we ought to learn how to practice biblical lament and I'm convinced in my life Dave that one of the reasons that I struggle with bitterness is because I'm not as honest with the Lord as I ought to be you start wondering how many more years do I have to get this right thankfully my identity is not wrapped up in me getting it right but ultimately it's wrapped up in my identity in Christ but I want to spend the remaining years of my life being more honest with the Lord immediately with the pain the hurt the disappointment so that it doesn't turn into bitterness because again that's the whole point of Hebrews 12 15 see to it that you don't fall short of the grace of God don't let this root of bitterness spring up cause trouble and defile many one of the ways I can do that as a pastor and as a father and as a husband as a friend is walk very quickly from bitter circumstances to the very throne of my God and cry out to him hear my cry oh God attendant to my prayer when my heart is overwhelmed lead me to the rock that is higher than I Psalm 61 1 & 2 and there may be some of our listeners who the truth of the matter is they have become bitter people that's just the honest truth in fact like one woman in the Bible named Naomi she started looking bitter and I really do believe if you don't handle this area in your life it'll affect the way that you look well one of the ways that I can prevent that is by very quickly going to the throne of God and so some of our listeners may say you know the reason I'm a bitter person today I have never spoken honestly to the Lord about these hurts it's interesting I took some women on a trip to Israel and we were doing just a lot of healing kind of conversations and talks and I talked to this one woman she was in her late 50s and she said I cannot forgive my mom and as we talked about it I said well do you feel like it's affecting you she said absolutely and then she said and I will not forgive my mom and so instead of convincing her or taking Bible verses and thumping her on the head with oh the Bible says you need to forgive I said let's do this and as you're talking about this the lament I'm wondering like oh could I've done something right because I often feel like I'm failing in this area and I said I want you to picture yourself standing before God and I want you to picture your mom who had passed away with Jesus now let me add this to she had told me the reason I can't forgive my mom is because every single day of my life she would take a broom and she would beat my sister and I with a handle of this room all day long and she said how do I forgive that she said it marked me all the days of my life and I will not forgive her and so she has this experience I said okay I just can you just picture yourself in your mind use your imagination and she said yes I said I want you to tell your mom how she harmed you and she had never done that before and so she starts going on and on to her mom angry like yelling angry of what this has caused her and then I said now I want you to take that I want you to tell Jesus yeah what that has meant and how it has affected you and so again she's crying she's yelling and I'm wondering was that lamenting oh I think it was and I just looked back on my life I viewed that kind of conversation as being disrespectful to the Lord yes I'm not supposed to complain to God as if he doesn't know about the situation that I'm already facing already so it it really results in a shallowness in my relationship with God if I'm not practicing authenticity and and perhaps many of us would do well to spend more time in the Psalms especially those lament Psalms and I've had the privilege recently of working with some counselors and I've encouraged them to write a psalm of lament so to follow one of the lament Psalms either one of the shorter ones or one of the longer ones but to actually write their own and tell their story to the Lord and then just pray that back to the Lord and when they would think about that event that hurt from the past then they can start factoring in but God knows about that I've been talking with the Lord about that and I have found his grace to be so it's not just me and the person who offended me or me and the person who hurt me now it's my loving Heavenly Father and we're continuing to have conversations and I would actually get to the place and this is really hard but when I can get to the place of saying it was good for me that I was afflicted absolutely you meant it for evil yeah but that's not the end of the sentence but God meant it for good it was good for me that I was afflicted that I might learn thy statutes and you know we've mentioned Hebrews 12 15 which is one of the seminal passages on bitterness the context is crucial that's a context about our Heavenly Father's and discipline in our life and we don't like that we don't like it at all because we don't like God to be sovereign right we want God to be Santa Claus and when we start to understand God loves us too much just to give us everything we want God always gives us a blend of blessings but also challenges in order to help conform us more to the image of Christ and so when I'm factoring the sovereignty of God into my hurt into my pain it helps me to start viewing the bitterness is melting away and the looking for opportunities to become more like Christ in the midst of that challenge or as a result but what I can get to the place of saying God's working that for good in my life I can't acknowledge God's sovereign work in my life to help me become more like Christ and be bitter simultaneously you cannot hold those two truths so you're getting rid of one in your heart and you're embracing one that is far far sweeter we'll talk about what that woman ended up sort of as she took it to Jesus as she lamented to Jesus you could feel at first there was such anger and the more she talked it was almost like a healing balm came over her and I said I want you to bottle up all the feelings that you have and even the bitterness and just picture yourself handing it to Jesus we used our imaginations for all kinds of things and so to visually just picture her handing it to him it was so interesting because as she handed it she didn't want to at first I got because sometimes that bitterness becomes our clothing absolutely that we've been carrying absolutely years and it was the first time she said that I've handed him all of that and what she said was as she handed it to him she had all these images and remembrances of what her mom told her about her own upbringing of how her mom had been beaten and abandoned and isolated and it was horrific and I think what she was saying was I felt like in that moment of remembrance I thought oh my mom was only reacting out of what had been given to her and now I have a choice that I can either pass on my bitterness or I can allow God's healing to begin to renew me and to renew my spirit she walked out of there and and it's not a one-time oh it's all done I know it's not I'm glad you said that you're right because many times it takes years to unpack some of that but you could tell there was a lightness about her that she hadn't had in a long time isn't that powerful to know that it's a choice yes if I'm a listener right now and there's an action step I think it's obvious it's a day to lament it's a day to maybe get a journal out and write your own I don't know what the percentage would be but when I read through the Psalms and I see the laments often those Psalms end in a totally different place they absolutely they're honest and they just don't you know hold it back like God I'm struggling with this this is where I am I don't understand and then you get to the end often even Psalm 73 when my favorite word yeah you just complain about the prosperous of the wicked and then he says I entered the sanctuary God that's right I finally was honest with my struggle I got a different perspective and again it's not a magic wish but man if you today took the bitterness you're feeling and put it pen to paper or get your phone out and digit or just pray it I mean I mean it Steve when I read that section on lament in your book I was like we don't do that enough I agree I don't do that yeah so I would encourage a listener today's your day to start the journey toward as you call it a life filled with hope it starts with maybe a limit today even honesty honesty with God is something we think we're not allowed to do sometimes but just as Dave was saying there the Psalms give us permission to be honest with the Lord and sometimes we aren't doing that well so to be honest with him and know that he can handle it is something that we need to remind ourselves of ask him to help you and your lament just might turn into praise it also might not and that's okay but what better place to be than in the presence of God when you're doing well or when you're doing horribly I'm Shelby Abbott and you've been listening to Dave and Ann Wilson with Stephen Viers on family life today Stephen's written a book called overcoming bitterness moving from life's greatest hurts to a life filled with joy does that sound nice does to me well you can get your copy but going online right now to family life today calm or you can find it in the show notes or just give us a call at 800 358 6329 again that number is 800 F as in family L as in life and then the word today did you know that family life offers an annual marriage cruise yes it's called the love like you mean it marriage cruise and it's a getaway for married couples looking for several things relaxation renewal romance all those are words and then lifelong memories and reconnection with God and with each other so doesn't that sound nice well right now you can book and save on our sees the savings sale try to say that five times fast sees as in SEAS do you see the wordplay there I do well you can use the promo code sees 25 which is SEAS 25 to save big on the love like you mean it 2025 cruise the sale actually ends tomorrow June 25th so you need to act right now talk to your spouse decide right now and do it before tomorrow because the savings is gonna end tomorrow on the 25th you can head over to family life today calm or give us a call to our guest service team at 800 358 6329 now in the Christian life we talk a lot about forgiveness but some people just really don't know the practicals of actually how to do that if you ever wondered how to forgive someone and if it really makes a difference when you do forgive well author and pastor Steven buyers is back tomorrow to explore how forgiveness can turn bitterness on its head that's tomorrow we hope you'll join us on behalf of David and Wilson I'm Shelby Abbott we'll see you back next time for another edition of family life today family life today is a donor supported production of family life a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most