Beating Back Bitterness

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 the 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. Yeah. You felt it because we lived that.

Yeah. I'm smiling, though, because how can I think we're doing great? Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson and I'm Dave Wilson.

And you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app. 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 going to 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 going to 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 your lead pastor of a church in Lafayette, Indiana, Hoosiers. Go Ball State Cardinals. Faith Church? Yeah, Faith Church in Lafayette. And yet you have this counseling side and a bent 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 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 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. And 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 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 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. Why are you still doing that? And they're like, can I go see somebody else on your staff?

Somebody that actually cares and can help me out of the muck of this thing. And also, we haven't even mentioned this, also you're married, three kids, four grandkids? Yes.

Yeah, so you're carrying a busy, busy life. But I think this topic, 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 Aona 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 there.

Pretty big. So let's talk because, 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 to center on the bitterness that's in our life, help us understand sort of the root.

You know, where does this come from? How does 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, hey, 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.

And 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, picros in the New Testament, the word bitter in two other categories. And one that really surprised me was bitter circumstances. This is why none of us can say, well, I don't have any bitterness in my life.

Well, 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.

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 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. There's another example of how bitterness is not first something that I do. 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. Because 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 the 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 coworkers are treating them in an unjust fashion, or just everything that goes on in a sin-cursed work environment. And again, it's bitter conditions. 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. So 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. I'm not bitter about that, and yet it'll reveal itself eventually, but I think it's often we don't know it. 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 fathers of Christ, we think that's sin to be bitter.

Do we live in a denial? Is it always apparent, or is there something that gets triggered? I was going to say, Dave, it's so funny because— Are you going to talk about my bitter heart?

Turn off the mics. I was just going to say, because Dave's great, I'm fine, I'm good, and 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 you need to forgive your dad. She didn't say, I think. She said, I'll never forget it, and again, I hadn't been able to identify. We were early in our marriage, so it was the first five, six years, but she literally said one day, you know, you're going to need to forgive your dad, and I looked at her like a bunch of years ago, and then as I stepped away and said, is there truth in what Ann said, it was like, oh my goodness, there's a hardened root in there. A bitterness that you faced, as you're saying.

But I couldn't see it until she sort of pointed it out, and then I'm like, oh my goodness, it's there. Then the question, and I know we're going to get there eventually. We don't need to get there immediately, but what do I do with that? 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 one of the biggest answers from the Word of God is to learn to practice lament, the discipline of lament between me and the Lord. You've 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 Vrogop, 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 at least a third of the psalms in the Bible are lament psalms. And it's pretty fascinating when you think about it, because psalms, that's our worship hymn, though.

Isn't that supposed to be happy, happy, happy? Not if you read the psalms honestly. 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 their 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 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, et cetera, et cetera. Not if we're going to 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.

And I'm a 61-year-old man. 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, O God, attend unto my prayer. When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Psalm 61, 1 and 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've 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 have 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, too. 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 the handle of this broom 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, OK, 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, 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 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 look back on my life. I viewed that kind of conversation as being disrespectful to the Lord. 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 really results in a shallowness in my relationship with God if I'm not practicing authenticity. 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 counselees, 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 sufficient. 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, that's a hard place. As Joseph did.

Absolutely. You meant it for evil, 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 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.

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 because sometimes that bitterness becomes our clothing.

It's our baggage that we've been carrying for 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 it's not a one time, oh, it's all done, I'm sure. No, it's not. I'm glad you said that. Yeah, 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 do. When they're honest and they just don't hold it back, it's 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, one of my favorites, where he's just complaining about the prosperous of the wicked, and then he says, I entered the sanctuary of God. It's like, when 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 it, Steven. 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. It's such a we don't either. 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 lament today.

Amen. Most of us don't have to be convinced about how toxic bitterness, anger, resentment can be for a relationship. We know that these are issues that need to be addressed in our own hearts, but we don't know how to do that. And sometimes it feels like if we confront the bitterness, we're going to be unsafe. That's why I think the book that Steven Byers has written, that Dave and Ann Wilson have been talking with him about today, the book Overcoming Bitterness is so helpful, so practical for so many of us, especially I'm thinking about the holiday season ahead.

I'm thinking about relationships that maybe you are apprehensive about engaging with family members, people where there is resentment or bitterness, where there's a hard heartedness. Steven Byers book Overcoming Bitterness is a great resource for you to process through, to pray your way through. We've got copies of it in our Family Life Today Resource Center. Go to our website familylifetoday.com to get your copy or call us to order at 1-800-FL-TODAY.

Again, the website is familylifetoday.com or you can call 1-800-358-6329 to request your copy of the book Overcoming Bitterness by Steven Byers. Now let me take just a minute here and say thank you to those of you who over the last couple of weeks have heard us talking about our year-end matching gift and have already gotten in touch with us and said we love Family Life Today, we appreciate the program, we agree with your mission to effectively develop godly marriages and families. We're on board, you've made a donation, your donation has been matched dollar for dollar from the matching gift fund. Thank you for getting in touch with us and supporting this mission. These last few weeks of 2021 are a significant time for us as a ministry.

What happens over the next few weeks will determine just how much family life is able to do, how we're able to move forward in the new year. Your generosity is what will determine those things. So if you believe in the mission of Family Life Today and you're able to help with a year-end contribution, we would love to hear from you. Be as generous as you can be, every dollar you donate is going to be matched dollar for dollar up to a total of $1.5 million. We want to take full advantage of that matching gift opportunity so we need to hear from you. And we'll also say thank you when you donate by sending you a copy of a devotional from Dane Ortlund.

Dane was on Family Life Today last week. He's written a devotional from the book of Psalms called In the Lord I Take Refuge. His book is our thank you gift to you when you make a year-end donation. We'll also send you a deck of playing cards.

Each card has a conversation starter on it so you can have some great conversations together with your family during the holidays. Again, donate online at familylifetoday.com or call to donate at 1-800-FL-TODAY. And please do pray for us here at Family Life that we'll be able to take full advantage of this matching gift opportunity. Now tomorrow we're going to hear about how we begin the journey toward dealing with bitterness and resentment in our relationships.

How do we move toward forgiveness? Stephen Viers will be back with Dave and Ann Wilson tomorrow. We hope you can be back as well. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.