I went to bed that night with bitterness in my heart.
It was a pretty ugly offense I was mad about—something that wounded me and others I loved. I’d spent much of the day just good and mad. Good and mad. Is that really how it is? I guess it feels good to be mad sometimes. In a passing-pleasures-of-sin kind of way. There wasn’t anything I could do about the situation, so I just stewed about it, pulling apart all the ways the wrong was just so wrong.
Before I knew it, anger had burned to bitterness. I went to bed with a prickle of conviction. “The anger of man does not accomplish the righteousness of God,” Jesus’ own brother has told us. Stop it, I told myself. But it felt good to be mad. My emotional response was a tightrope walk, and as I turned out the light that night, I found myself tipping precariously toward anger. No, not tipping. Not really. Leaning. I fell asleep remembering what Jesus said about anger.
A few hours later I was wandering a thickly wooded trail, desperately thirsty. I glimpsed a small pond—a little pool surrounded by tall grasses and scrubby bushes. The water was filmed over with a thick green layer that spoke of little disturbance or rain. I looked at the empty water bottle in my hand and plunged it beneath the scummy surface, filling it to the brim. I drank and drank and drank, unable to slake my thirst. The slimy topcoat was thicker than I expected, and I sputtered on the sludge sticking in my throat. I looked into my water bottle and watched a host of slithering little bodies swimming about. Tadpoles? Leeches? I wasn’t sure, but I knew that some of them were now sitting in my belly. My stomach heaved. I coughed and coughed and woke up startled.
The clocked glowed an early morning hour well before dawn. I sat up in bed and took a tentative sip of water from the water bottle on my nightstand. Nausea cramped my stomach. I knew the water was clean, but still. I tried to purge the image of the sludgy pond water from my mind, but I couldn’t stop seeing it. I got out of bed and hunted down an antacid from the kitchen drawer. In that thin place between sleep and wakefulness, I stood both in my kitchen and at the edge of the sludgy pool. This is bitterness, I thought. Every time you revisit an offense, you’re drinking from a scummy pond. You’re poisoning yourself.
A few days later, I told a friend about the dream. While we were talking about disgusting things like drinking algae-coated pond water and revisiting an offense over and over again, I remembered the proverb about a dog returning to its vomit and a fool repeating his folly (see Prov. 26:11). I wish I was as turned off by bitterness as I am by drinking a cup of sludge swimming with unidentifiable creatures. Even if I could justify an angry response to an offense, I don’t know that I’ve ever responded in an anger untainted by sinfulness. What I do is let the offense grow in my belly until it’s writhing with bitterness. I go back to the offense over and over again, rehashing it, preparing imaginary responses, standing as both judge and jury.
But revisiting an offense is about as good for me as drinking from a sludgy pond full of slithering, amphibious creatures. Every time I revisit the offense and feel the gurgle of anger underneath the surface, I’m plunging my cup into the scum and drinking it down. Willfully. Sinfully. And there are consequences for this choice of beverage.
It’s foolishness to keep subjecting yourself to something that causes you to sin. Fanning every remembered spark of anger into a blaze does nothing but burn you up from the inside out. Drinking from a pool of bitterness does nothing but slowly poison you.
Jesus died to free us from sin. So sometimes I wonder why I keep looking back at the hurtful things others have done. I don’t want God to look back at all the things I’ve done, and I’m thankful that He doesn’t (see Heb. 8:12). Why do I hold others to a standard I could never keep? The antidote to bitterness is forgiveness. It’s remembering that God has forgiven me an immeasurable load of debt. Freed from the cumbersome, damning burden of my offenses, I can forgive the small measure of hurt from another. I can walk away from the pool of bitterness. I don’t have to drink that poison. Jesus set me free from this kind of self-destruction. I don’t have to return to this kind of damaging folly. I must not.
In the days since that night of bitterness-drinking, I’ve looked deep into the pond. Each time I’m tempted to fill my cup, I’ve remembered James’ warning: “The anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” Be slow to anger. Slow to speak. Put away all filthiness. Receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. And I know that I’ll never find the answer on the well-worn path to the pool of bitterness. The answer is turning my face to the gospel of Jesus. Remembering how much He’s forgiven me. Remember how He’s saved me. Remember that He’s saving me still.
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For more, see Matthew 18:21-35.
It’s foolishness to keep subjecting yourself to something that causes you to sin. Fanning every remembered spark of anger into a blaze does nothing but burn you up from the inside out. Click To Tweet
Photo by Kayla Gibson on Unsplash
Glenna Marshall is married to her pastor, William, and lives in rural Southeast Missouri where she tries and fails to keep up with her two energetic sons. She is the author of The Promise is His Presence (P&R) and Everyday Faithfulness (Crossway), and Memorizing Scripture (Moody). Connect with her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.