Mara. Bitterness. Wormwood.
Deuteronomy 29:18, “Beware lest there be among you a man or woman or clan or tribe whose heart is turning away today from the LORD our God to go and serve the gods of those nations. Beware lest there be among you a root that beareth bitterness and wormwood;”
Bitterness can be a root in our hearts which drives all of our intentions, ideas, and decisions. It can influence our emotional capital so strongly, we find abundant reasons to turn away from right, and justify wrong. Beyond sad, it is more than merely being disappointed … beyond the horizon of grief — it is all those things with a vengeance, striking and snapping at all that’s around us.
Bitterness grips our thinking like waves, constantly washing in and out, pulverizing our dreams and healthy hopes. The writer of Lamentations used the word bitterness in Lamentations 3:15 in a way which says it’s like a tidal wave in our head with an attitude of an eye-for-an-eye with revenge. In Ruth 1:20, the word for bitterness or “mara”, ends in a Hebrew letter which paints a picture of something that grips in a full fisted grip, all our senses, twisting our sense of taste so that everything tastes bad, our impressions of odors only noting the offensiveness, accenting touch to recognize only the rough and indelicate textures in relationships, persuading our eyes to see all of life’s hard featured attributes, and all that’s wrong with everything. It filters our auditory functions to only focus on everything unkind and discouraging. Bitterness is powerful to narrow God’s goodness from our perception, inspiring revenge, spite, spiritual starvation, and social deprivation leaving us alone in a dark prison cell only reserved for violent offenders.
Offense and disappointment are always sending us invitations in the mail and knocking on the door of our heart, and if allowed in our house, they will germinate to grow more of themselves, taking root everywhere.
i met a man who said he had a dream, and in the dream he was in his living room. There, growing right in the middle was a big, ugly, horrible smelling tree, and it’s big oozing, knotted roots ran into every room, so much so he said he couldn’t hardly walk. He said the branches with gnarled, twisted little leaves draped over the windows, casting long shadows, and had gotten into the water supply so water wouldn’t easily flow from the faucets. He said it was awful, just awful and he woke up feeling like he was suffocating.
After some extended conversation, he mentioned his long running anger at God because his mother had unexpectedly died, but he wouldn’t let his anger stop. He perpetuated it, constantly revisiting the disappointment, and the more he thought about it all the more he thought about it all, until he resented the Lord for, in his words, “letting this happen”, blaming God, over and over until his resentment colored all his thinking, all his breathing, and all his feeling. Yes, even his unconscious thoughts and actions. i believe the dream was from the Lord painting a picture of how bitterness had been allowed to grow in his heart and head, and had become so invasive, it had taken over every room in the house, even blocking life giving water and light.
i’d say, that’s pretty accurate. Bitterness, or wormwood, if allowed to fester like a rotting wound, can kill you as the final action at a most bitter end.
One writer calls this form of ultimate self-centeredness to be like, “a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage, resulting in frenzied, joyless grabs for happiness filled with trinket gods and magic-show religion.” He wrote that “bitterness drives paranoid loneliness, all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants, a brutal temper and chainsaw styled judgment. Eventually, we’ll find ourselves cornered in divided homes, divided vision, divided lives, and small-minded, lopsided pursuits with a vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into being a rival.”
A fellow told me once that unforgiveness is hell-bent sin. i didn’t get it until years later when i found myself tied and gagged by offense, disappointment, and bitterness. The Lord said to me, straight out, plain as day, “You can be free of all that, but you’ll have to let go of some stuff.” He pointed out that it wasn’t my job to fix the other person, but to deal with my own things. i had to buy into forgiveness, and i mean really buy into it with all your heart. We’ve got to see, realize, and recognize the places we’ve allowed our flesh to gain power over our spirit, and get back our relish for righteous things. Not “what’s wrong with them?, “if they would only…. then i would” thus and such, but “where am i in this mess?”
God can free you of bitterness and wormwood. His solution is for us to gain a heart of thankfulness, being thankful for grace, living in it’s flow so much so it overflows to others. We may have to get counseling as to not “what” is going on with us, but “why” can’t we let it go. The love of God is overwhelming, but we really do need to be honest about ourselves, and let His abundant grace and forgiveness overflow us. Ask the Lord for help to get free. He hears you and He will, He will, He will answer. When He does, go with God, He knows the way out of the jungle of bitterness and disappointment which may very well have taken over your house.
What do you think?