How to Be Free from Bitterness

“Get rid of all
bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of
malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as
in Christ God forgave you. Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved
children, and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up
for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Eph. 4:31–5:2).

In this text, we are instructed to get rid of all bitterness. Before we begin
discussing how and why this must be done, it is crucial to realize that the
basis for all our actions in this regard must be what Jesus Christ has done for
us on the cross. In all our actions, we are to be imitators of God.

In
the Old Testament, there was a woman whose name meant Pleasant. Her name was
Naomi, and she had moved from Israel to another land with her husband and sons.
But her husband had died, and within the next ten years both of her sons died.

She
made some comments to her recently widowed daughters-in-law about it. Ruth
1:13b: “It is more bitter for me than for you, because the Lord’s hand has gone
out against me!” She was comparing in order to determine who had the right to
be more bitter.

In
Ruth 1:20–21: “Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the
Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has
brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the
Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”

Her
bitterness was toward God. It was God who had taken away her husband; it was
God who had taken away her sons, and she held it against Him. Five times in
these three verses she held God accountable for her bitterness.

There
are many people like this today. Not only are they bitter; they enjoy being
bitter. They somehow like it, and they feed on it. They wouldn’t know what to
do if they got rid of it; they wouldn’t have a purpose for living. They like
being bitter.

We
know people like that in the world, and we know people like that in the church.
It is easy to recognize when someone is bitter. You can see it in the eyes and
in the lines of the face—even if the person is young. You can see it in their
mouth; you can see it when they’re smiling or laughing. You can hear it in the
tone of their voice. You can hear it when they protest that they are not
bitter. The bitterness is central, and it pervades everything.

There
are bitter people in the Bible besides Naomi. In fact, there are quite a few.
For example, Jonah was a bitter man. The Lord said to him, “Do you have a right
to be angry about the vine?”

“I
do,” he said. “I am angry enough to die” (Jonah 4:9).

He
thought he had a right to his anger. I like being angry. God, You are wrong to
forgive people. I don’t want You to forgive people.

People
enjoy holding things against other people. But our text requires us to remove
all bitterness and to maintain a tender heart.

Here’s
the question: Is it possible to be kind, compassionate, tenderhearted, and yet
bitter at the same time? These are all interior attitudes. Tenderheartedness,
by definition, involves a tender heart. Bitterness is also on the inside. But
it is not possible to have two different, contradictory attitudes on the
inside.

Paul
says to get rid of all bitterness, and to be kind and compassionate one to
another. Therefore, the bitterness must go. But before it can be removed, it is
necessary to know what it is—and that it is there.

It
is relatively easy to see when other people are bitter. But it’s not so easy to
see it in ourselves. It is therefore important to have a good understanding of
the Bible’s definition of the problem.

Let
us suppose that a Christian commits a sin. He tells a lie, for instance. When
he tells this lie, does he feel guilty, or does he feel bitter? The answer is
guilty. When we sin, we feel guilty. It is straightforward. Now suppose that
someone told a lie about this same Christian and spread it all over town. What
does he feel now—guilt or bitterness?

Guilt
is what we feel when we sin, and bitterness is what we feel when others sin
against us. The very definition of bitterness points to the action of another.
If we had committed the offense, we would feel guilty and would know that we
had to confess and forsake our sin. We might not confess the sin when we are
guilty, but not because we did not know what to do. But what do we do with the
guilt of others?

Bitterness
is always based upon someone else’s sin—whether real or imagined. Consider the
imaginary sin first. Many times we can be bitter toward someone for what he
said, when in reality he did not say it. We heard a false report, and now we
are bitter. We wait for an apology which he cannot offer. Shall we remain in
bitterness the rest of our lives because he never says he is sorry for
something he did not do?

Incidentally,
many bitter people cannot imagine the possibility that they are bitter over
imaginary sins. As far as bitterness is concerned, the other person’s guilt is
always real. For such a person trying to be free from bitterness, it is
acceptable for them to assume that the guilt of the other person is real, so
long as they get rid of their own bitterness.

But
what about genuine sin? There are many bitter people who really were mistreated
by the offender. So how do we deal with a genuine offense?

Bitterness
is based on sin that somehow relates to you. It is not concerned with how big
the sin is; it is based upon how close it is. For instance, if some great and
gross immorality occurs in Iran, Iraq, El Salvador, or Colombia, what do we do?
We read about it, but we will not feel guilty. We read about it, but we will
not feel bitter. We might be appalled or amazed, but we do not feel guilty, and
we do not feel bitter, even though it was an awful sin, and someone actually
committed it. So it does not depend on how great the evil is; it depends on how
close the other person is to me. Bitterness is related to those people who are
close.

Who
are likely candidates? The answer is simple: fathers, mothers, brothers,
sisters, husbands, wives, children, boyfriends, girlfriends, roommates,
immediate superiors, immediate subordinates, coworkers, business partners, and
maybe some other relatives—grandparents, uncles, etc. There are even many
people who are bitter against God.

We
do not get bitter towards evil outside of our own immediate contact. Bitterness
is based upon the sin of someone who is close to us and who did something to
us. It might be minor. It does not have to be great; it just has to be close.
Does he pick up his socks? No? Can you get bitter over that? Well, no, but what
if he does it 5,000 times?

You
may think you have a right to be bitter. But the Bible does not grant anyone
the right to be bitter. The text says to get rid of all bitterness.

“See
to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to
cause trouble and defile many” (Heb. 12:15). Here it describes bitterness as if
it were a root. A root is something that is underground and cannot be seen. But
there can be visible evidence of its presence, as when sidewalks are lifted.

The
fact that you cannot see roots does not mean they are not there. Neither does
it mean you will never see them. They drink in nourishment, and they do not
stay roots. Eventually they come up.

The
fruit that is born bears a direct relation to the root that is producing it.
The roots of an apple tree provide us with apples. If there is a bitter root,
it will bear bitter fruit.

That
is what this verse is saying. Beware lest any root of bitterness spring up,
cause trouble, and defile many people, which means to make many people filthy.
Have you ever seen bitterness go through a church? Bitterness can go through a
congregation like a prairie fire. It can go through the workplace or a
dormitory. Why is this? Somebody decided to share. He was bitter, and he let
the root come to the surface and bear fruit. He shared it, and many people
became bitter. The author of Hebrews warns us about this. He says beware of
missing the grace of God. When you allow it, bitterness comes up and defiles
many people. It makes many people filthy.

What
happens to a person if he keeps bitterness on the inside for many years? What
happens to him physically? Suppose it is bitterness toward some member of the
family. He has not shared it. He has not defiled many people—he has kept it
down inside. When he keeps it in for some years, he finally begins to hurt. He
goes to the doctor, and the doctor says, “You are right; you are sick. But your
sickness is not the kind I deal with. I am going to send you to the other kind
of doctor.”

So
he sends him to the psychiatrist, and the psychiatrist agrees. “Yes, you are
sick all right. And I know why. You are sick because of twenty years of
bitterness towards your father. You have kept it suppressed all these years,
and it’s rotted out your insides. You have kept this poison within, and this
acid on the inside has made you physically ill. So what I want you to do is to
go home and share it with your father. Why keep it in and get sick? Let it out.
Get everybody else sick.”

So
the world has two solutions: Keep the bitterness in and make yourself sick, or
let it out and spread the sickness around. God’s solution is to dig up the
root. Get rid of it. But this takes the grace of God. A man must know the Lord
Jesus Christ to be able to do this. He is the source of grace.

Christians
should not use the world’s solutions for bitterness. When Christians copy the
world, they have two poor choices. The Bible says to get rid of all bitterness.
You must not keep it in, and you must not share it. Surrender it to the Father,
through the Son.

“But
if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast
about it or deny the truth. Such ‘wisdom’ does not come down from heaven but is
earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish
ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice” (James 3:14–15).

When
I was a young midshipman at the Naval Academy, I thought that the pettiness and
jealousy I observed would give way to maturity. I thought the higher you got in
rank, the more mature you became, the less this sort of thing occurred. But as
I grew older, I found out that the jealousy just got more intense. Bitterness
accumulates. Unless there’s a solution to it, people do not get less bitter
with maturity. They get more bitter over the years. It gets worse and worse.

And
if you harbor bitter envy, evil practice will result. It does not come from
heaven. It is straight from the pit and is of the devil. Every evil practice
results from this attitude. As should be obvious, we have a real problem. How
do we get rid of bitterness?

Before
we can get rid of bitterness, we have to realize that we are bitter. How can we
tell if we are bitter? One good rule of thumb is this: Bitterness remembers
details. You have had thousands of conversations in your life, most of which
you have forgotten. But this one took place five years ago, and you remember
every single word, his intonation, and every inflection of his voice. You know exactly
what happened—which means you are bitter.

Someone
might object and say that it is also possible to have a good memory of a
wonderful conversation. Is this possible? Yes, but not likely. Why? Because
memory is helped by review, review, and more review. People do not usually mull
over the wonderful things as much. But they do go over and over and over the
bad things. I have done quite a bit of counseling with people who are in the
process of getting divorced. I have known some of them since they were married,
at a happier time in their life. But at the time of the divorce, they cannot
remember a single happy time. All they can remember is what they have gone over
and over. They are bitter.

This
doesn’t mean there were not happy times. It just means that they have
concentrated on how right they were and how wrong the other person was. If
someone has a sharp, detailed memory for things which happened years ago when
he was a child or a young man or woman, and that memory is at all accusative of
anyone, then it is an indication of bitterness. And the solution for bitterness
is to get rid of it.

I
had a wonderful experience one time in Dallas, Texas. I was speaking on a
Saturday night at the home of an old friend. Because I was going to be in
Dallas, I wrote notes to several people that I knew in the area, and they
showed up at this home.

My
host asked me to speak on bitterness, which I did. Afterwards, a couple came up
to see me. I had known them eight years before in Pullman, Washington. The wife
said, “We have been married for eight years. The first year of marriage, I was
so bitter toward my mother that I laid it on my husband every single day. Our
first year of marriage was just awful because I kept sharing this bitterness
toward my mother with my husband.”

Then
she told me that seven years earlier I had spoken on bitterness, and she had
gotten rid of hers. One day, she saw another woman who was really bitter
towards her mother. She thought, “I can help that woman. I can share all the
common experiences. I went to her to share this, and I couldn’t remember any of
the details. My detailed memory had gone. All I could tell her was I used to
remember things, and I do not remember them anymore.” The Lord had really taken
care of her bitterness.

Another
time, I was teaching a four-week course on marriage. I had put a notice in the
paper and did not know who would show up. A woman came who had been referred to
the class by a doctor. I can honestly say that I have never seen anyone more
bitter in appearance in my life. She had forty years of accumulated bitterness.
She got rid of it that night and made an appointment to see me the next day at
the bookstore where I worked. She came into the store, and I did not know who
she was. She looked so different. I had just met her the night before, but she
was clean inside now.

What
is the problem? Why do we not get rid of bitterness? If I tell a lie, I can
confess it and be forgiven. In order to get rid of it, I have to bring it back
to my own heart. We need to bring the realization of bitterness back to our own
hearts. Instead, the temptation is to look at the offender. Look what he did.
That is the nature of bitterness. In order to get rid of it, I need to
recognize that it is my problem before I can confess and forsake it.

You
say, “I am not bitter. I just get hurt easily.” But the symptoms of getting
hurt are very close to the symptoms of resentment. Do you know what instant
resentment is? You might say. “It is not bitterness—it is just hurt feelings.”
But there is a close relationship between being hurt and being resentful.
Someone gets hurt, and he gets resentful. There is another very close
connection between resentment and bitterness. Resentment turns into a deep
bitterness.

Bitterness
is just resentment that has been held on to. It has become rancid and rotten.
It is kept in, and it gets worse.

The
links in the chain continue. There is a connection between bitterness and
hatred, and a very clear biblical identification between hatred and murder.
What I am saying is that hurt can lead to murder. Some might object that this
teaching is too strong. But the strength of it is from the Bible.

What
we want to do is make it apparent how sinful bitterness is. The bitter person
must first recognize that he is bitter, and secondly, that it is a gross evil.
Again, the reason people do not deal with this sin is that they think it is the
other person’s sin. The devil says, “Well, when he quits lying, or he quits
doing this or that, or when he says he’s sorry, then you will feel better.”

But
suppose he does not quit? Suppose he never quits? Are you going to be bitter
for the rest of your life because someone else insists on being in sin? That
does not make any sense at all. You may say, “I will forgive him when he says
he is sorry, but not until then. I have a right to my bitterness until then.
When he says he is sorry, I will forgive him and everything will be fine.” You
keep this wall of bitterness up, and one day he comes to you and he says, “I’m
sorry.” Can you forgive him now? No, because bitterness doesn’t forgive. In
order to forgive this person when he says he is sorry, you have to be ready
before he says he is sorry. And if you are ready to forgive him before he says
he is sorry, then it doesn’t depend on whether he says he is sorry or not. In
other words, you get rid of bitterness unilaterally. It does not matter what
the other person does.

Earlier,
I made the point that bitterness seems to stem from the other person’s sin—real
or imagined. That is only how it appears. In reality, bitterness is a sin that
stands alone. The bitter person decides to be bitter independently of the
offender.

You
say, “No, he sinned against me, and when he says he is sorry everything will be
fine.” That is not true. I have known situations where an apology was offered,
and the person is still bitter. Suppose the offender is dead and cannot
apologize. I know people who are extremely bitter, and the bitterness is
towards their parents who died years ago. But the bitterness has not died.
Bitterness is the sin of the bitter person alone, unrelated to anyone else.

One
time around Christmas, I went to the Walla Walla State Penitentiary to spend
the day with the inmates. I spent about six hours there. During the afternoon,
I was in maximum security, talking about and teaching evangelism. One fellow
asked about reaching the really hard-core criminals. I thought he was really
interested in such evangelism and talked to him about it. Then I spent time in
minimum security, protective custody, and other places. In the evening, I was
back in maximum security, and thought I would talk on the subject of
bitterness. I figured there were probably some bitter people there.

The
same fellow who had asked about evangelism in the afternoon asked me another
question. He said, “How can you get rid of bitterness towards somebody who beat
up your three-year-old son unmercifully?”

I
told him how, and then I said, “You know, when you get rid of your bitterness
you can help this person so that he won’t beat up other little kids.”

He
said, “No, this guy cannot be helped.”

I
said, “Sure, he can.”

“No,
no.”

“Why
not?”

“He
is not with us anymore.”

This
inmate had murdered him. He had murdered him because of what he had done to his
three-year-old son—that’s why he was in prison. But even though he had killed
the man, he was still bitter. In other words, expressing his bitterness did not
get rid of it. Nor did the death get rid of it.

When
someone else says he is sorry, it does not get rid of our bitterness. The only
thing that gets rid of it is confession before God because of the Lord Jesus
Christ’s death and resurrection. This is the only solution.

You
may say that the person you are bitter toward died many years ago. You did not
kill the person like the man in prison. Otherwise, there is no difference; the
other person is dead, and you are still bitter.

If
the person who died was a believer, he is with the Lord, forgiven and pure. You
are bitter towards someone who is rejoicing in Heaven because his name is
written in the Lamb’s book of life.

If
the person who died was not a believer, then he is under the judgement of God
described in 2 Thessalonians 1:6–8: “God is just: He will pay back trouble to
those who trouble you and give relief to you who are troubled, and to us as
well. This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing
fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do
not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.”

“Do
not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is
written: ‘It is mine to avenge; I will repay,’ says the Lord” (Rom. 12:19). God
is just, and God does the repaying.

Even
if these people were alive, they could not take care of your bitterness, nor
could you by going after them. Being dead, they have been taken care of, either
way. That leaves you, alive and bitter, hurting yourself and everyone around
you for years. Your bitterness is your sin, regardless of what you think caused
it. God will allow you to experience the forgiveness and joy that is yours when
you repent and confess your bitterness as a great sin against God. We must not
keep it, and we must not share it with others. There is only one thing to do,
and that is to confess it as a great and evil sin. We must be as persistent in
the confession as necessary.

Once
I was speaking in Monterey, California, at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.
There was a man there who had a great reputation as a Bible teacher. He was a
line officer in the Navy, but he had been passed over for the command of a
submarine, and he was bitter. I spoke on confession of sin and bitterness, and
he was really wiped out. He came and saw me and got rid of his bitterness. The
next morning, his wife said to me, “I’ve got a new husband.” He had been bitter
toward the Navy, but it was his sin, not the Navy’s.

Amy
Carmichael has a note in her little book If: “For a cup brimful of sweet
water cannot spill even one drop of bitter water, however suddenly jolted.”[1] If
a cup is full of sweet water and is jolted, what will come out of it? Sweet
water. If you give it a harder jolt, what’s going to spill? More sweet water.
If someone is filled with sweet water and someone else gives him a jolt, what
will come out? Sweet water. Jolts do not turn sweet water into bitter water.
That is done by something else.

Jolts
only bring out of the container what is already in it. If you are filled with
sweetness and light and you get jolted, you’re going to spill sweetness and
light. If you’re filled with honey, the honey will come out. If vinegar comes
out, what does that prove? It shows what was already in the container. In other
words, much bitterness is not based upon what the other person did at all. It
is the result of what we do and are.

Many
years ago, I was working in our bedroom at my desk. My wife Bessie was reading
in bed. Whatever I was doing wasn’t going well. Bessie said something to me,
and I turned around and let her have it. It was something un-Christian. She
looked at me in amazement and got up and left the room. I sat there thinking,
“She should not have said it. Look what she said. Look, look, look.” I did that
for around ten minutes. I was bitter towards Bessie, but all she did was jolt
the cup. What was in the cup came out.

If
I had been filled with sweetness and light, the jolt would not have mattered. I
sat there and thought about what she did. I knew better, because I had already
learned this truth about bitterness. Still, I thought about her “sin” because
there is enjoyment in accusing the other person. Some people do this for years.

I
sat there for a while and then got up and went over to my side of the bed, got
on my knees, and said, “Lord, I was the only one at fault. It was my bitterness
and my sin. I am confessing it, forsaking it, and please forgive me.”

I
got up off my knees and said, “But look what she said.” I got back on my knees.

“God,
I’m sorry for what I did. I accept the responsibility. It was my sin, and mine
only.”

I
got up off my knees and said, “God, You and I know who is really at fault.” I
knelt back down. I stayed on my knees for forty-five minutes until I could get
up and not say, “Look what she said.”

I
do not remember now what Bessie said, and I do not remember what I was doing at
the desk. I do not remember the details. The only thing I remember now is
getting up. But I also know that if I had not taken care of the bitterness I
would know to this day exactly what she had said. That is the nature of
bitterness.

In
order to get rid of bitterness, I have to see that it is evil, and that it is
my sin and my sin only. I do not get rid of it through the other person saying
he is sorry. I do not get rid of it if the other person quits or dies. I do not
get rid of it any other way except calling it sin against the holy God,
confessing it, and receiving forgiveness.

The
difficulty is getting my eyes off the other person’s sin. But just the fact
that I think it is his problem shows that it is not. If it actually were his
problem, and I were filled with sweetness and light, and not bitter, then I
would be concerned about him. I could say, “That poor guy! Look what he did. If
I did something like that, I would feel awful. He must really feel awful. I
think I will go help him.” If that is not my response, then I am bitter, and it
is my sin, not his.

I
believe that this sin is a major hindrance to revival in this country. When
Christians start confessing their sins, they will be able to forgive the sins
of others.