Man, I won't lie, I did an honest introspection of my life this year and most of it was feelings of bitterness. As human beings, we have the tendency to get bitter when life doesn't go the way we planned. Sometimes, we beat ourselves up because we made a big mistake here and there and can't learn to forgive ourselves. At times, we tend to blame others for our own shortcomings never taking responsibility for the choices we made. That's us and I'm a part of that pool, too. Bitterness just like any other human flaw or emotion can lead to various other problems resulting in living in darkness (sin). I recall a part in the Bible about a woman named Hannah. She was married to a man named Elkanah, who also had another wife by the name of Penninah. Hannah was childless but Penninah had a lot of them. To bring it up to speed in 2012, some of us are broke, tired, weary, childless, homeless, friendless, and the list goes on. There may be others in your life that everything is flowing for them easily. Hmmmm. What makes it worse, just like Penninah did, they throw their successes in your face mocking you. May e it's not one person or people around, maybe it's society in general. You've got to have a lot of money, an iPhone 5, a nice car, and nice clothes to be somebody and if you don't you're nothing. So these type of these can leave us bitter. But one thing I admire about Hannah is that she didn't stay in the place of bitterness where it led her to do something stupid. Her used her bitterness as a stepping stone in her prayer life. One part of The Lord's Prayer says "Give us this day our daily bread." She not only wanted God to bless her with a child, she also wanted the bitterness of soul to go away. She didn't stop praying until God blessed. The same thing happened for Jacob. He got tired of running from his past, falling over his mistakes. He wanted a new lease on life and wanted the bitterness of his life to go away. Job lost everything he had and talked about how bitter he was to his judgmental friends. But these people have one thing in common, they prayed to God and He heard their cry. And just as He did then He is still doing now. God doesn't want us to. Live our lives in bitterness. He wants us to live free from it and all the other evils that come with it. All we have to do is come boly before His throne of grace that we may get favor and help in our time of need (Hebrew 4:16). Lately, my friends, I picked my prayer life back up and begin to come clean about my pent up bitterness. It was leading to a life of unforgiveness, hatred, irritability, and lifelessness. But when I began to cry out and reveal myself before Him that's when things in my life started happening. That's when hope was birthed through my place of pain. And today my friends, I encourage you to pray to The Lord Jesus, for He knows the impact of bitterness. Don't let it break you, you allow God to break it when you come before Him in prayer. But if we don't, the kids that bitterness produces are catastrophic.
Til next time, gdow.
References:
Ephesians 4:31
Hebrews 4:16
Matthew 6:9-13
1st Samuel 1
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