Bitterness

How often do we hold on to bitterness and excuse ourselves by saying things like ‘It’s not hurting anyone’?  Not true.  According to the Bible, when bitterness springs up, it troubles us and affects others (Hebrews15:12).  Un-forgiveness and bitterness go hand in hand.  Both keep us tied to the past.

Let’s look at two women with similar lives and extremely good reasons to be bitter.  Both had fathers more interested in lining their own pockets than the welfare of their daughters.  Both loved and married men who didn’t love them.  Both were abandoned by their husbands.  One held that bitterness close.  One let it go.  The one who held it close remained lonely and bitter to the end.  The one who let it go was roughly 38 generations back the grandmother of Jesus.  

Michal: daughter of Saul; wife of David. 

David had already won the right to marry one of Saul’s daughters when he killed Goliath.  Didn’t happen.  Then Saul offered David his oldest daughter, Merab, if he would fight the Philistines.  David fought.  Saul reneged.  Instead, Saul used Michal to try to get David killed by demanding 100 Philistine foreskins as ‘bride’ payment.      

The bible says Michal loved David.  It’s never implies David loved her.  Michal risked her life to help David escape her father’s murderous plot.  As punishment, she was given to another man as wife.  During all the years David fled from Saul, there is no indication he tried to see her or get her back.  (You know the people around her made sure she heard all the latest news about David including the two women he married.)  The only reason Michal ended up with David was because he demanded she be brought to him as proof the ten tribes of Israel accepted him as king.  The path of bitterness is easy to see.  In the end she was left childless and married to a man she despised.

Leah: daughter of Laban; wife of Jacob.

Laban tricked Jacob into marrying Leah to get her off his hands.  The bible says Leah was the hated (by both Jacob and Rachel) wife.  When Leah quit having babies, the inference is Jacob quit having sex with her.  How do we know this?  Because she bargained with Rachel to ‘hire’ Jacob to have sex and when they did, she got pregnant.  Leah bore six of Jacob’s twelve sons.   Her fourth son, Judah, is the line Jesus came from.  There was always tension in Jacob's clan and the bible never says Jacob loved Leah.  It also never indicates Leah lived her life in bitterness.

Outside forces do push against us but we have the ability to push back.  Only we can decide to embrace or reject bitterness.  That one decision, for good or bad, has great ripple effects not only across our lives but the lives of those around us.