Roots of Bitterness - 2

See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled. (Hebrews 12:15)

I feel compelled to spend some time in Hebrews unpacking this issue of bitterness before I continue in Romans. It is coming more into focus in my heart and I feel that I need to deal with it instead of stubbornly trying to keep on course in the passages where I have been studying for the past few months. I do want to return and finish the book of Romans without leaving it dangling, but right now I need to address this personal problem while I am under conviction.

I'm not sure the best way to go about this but I trust the Holy Spirit to guide me as He is the one who is bringing it to my attention anyway, Right now I think I will start at Hebrews 11:39 and work my way forward for it looks to me like nearly every verse contains important ingredients for understanding and clues to awaken the deeper issues buried out of sight in my heart and memories that need to be exposed and dealt with. I don't want this to be just an intellectual exercise, but that approach may be useful as a starter to allow my heart exposure to convictions as I expose my mind and heart to the Word.

This is coming right off the famous chapter ticking off a number of examples of faith from throughout history. Immediately on the heels of this expose´ of what faith can look like I read this:

And all these, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised, because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect. (Hebrews 11:39-40)

I feel like following a format something like this as I work through the following verses – I want to look for two things: what might be a potential for making a person bitter and what does this passage present as a healing solution for bitterness. I am dealing with something that is primarily at the heart level which may make it very difficult to translate with my head at times, but I feel the need to do it anyway. In the process I want to remain very respectful of listening to my feelings and emotions and not allowing my expositions to get in the way whenever I need time for uninterrupted heart processing. This is new to me somewhat and I trust God to guide me through this exploration and healing journey.

As I read these two verses what is described here would seem to me like a potential source of bitterness if I were one of these “heroes” of faith just described in verses 36-38 who did not receive what was promised. I know the typical intellectual response to this as the “right” answer theologically, but the heart has little use for those sorts of pat answers. To put it in a succinct way, I would feel very cheated if these words described my life. The following ideas come to mind from my heart: cheated, lied to, confused, disappointed.... Why would God set things up this way? What does this mean, God had provided something better for us...? Something seems terribly unfair about that – they don't receive what was promised because people down the road are provided something better? My own heart says that if I was one of these mistreated, faithful people and found out about this arrangement that it might be a very big potential for feeling bitter.

How much does that resonate in my own heart? Well, right now it is feeling like about a 4 or 5 on a scale of 1-10. Let me go on.

...so that apart from us they would not be made perfect. That really riles my sense of independence and fairness too. I know that I have been learning a lot about the importance of community, accountability etc. but I have not been learning very much of it experientially. I am still quite independent in my own spirit and rather private in my spiritual and emotional life. I am quite selective as to who I will allow very far into my heart (nearly no one that I can think of actually) because I have felt deeply hurt or betrayed from the times I have attempted it in the past.

Again, I am not following religiously correct answers here but simply recognizing the first emotions that surface from the heart for the sake of honesty. In fact, to protect the vulnerability that my heart is feeling right now I am seriously considering not making this public until my heart gives me permission. And that would likely be after it has received some healing and resolution and relief from this problem. Of course, knowing myself I am just as likely to have a sudden urge to put it all out there prematurely in some sort of emotional attempt to make a breakthrough of some sort. Maybe my heart doesn't understand the way things work in the real world because that is the sort of thing that often gets me into the most pain.

I feel like I am lurching very clumsily in my attempts to discover the true reality of life instead of the counterfeit reality that I have always lived under in society. My fear of pain is often the element that grabs the steering wheel and lurches me off the road into the ditch every time I see an oncoming truck threatening to crash into me. Right now I feel like I am once again timidly trying to pick up speed once again and make some forward progress in things of the heart. How do I move forward from here? How do I get further down the road without having another big smash-up? The parable from which this illustration comes was written by Morris Vendon many years ago but seems extremely relevant right now. Maybe I should go back and review it.

Do I sense the presence of bitterness here yet? I believe so. But I am reminded that exposing the bitterness itself, as helpful as that is, is not the solution in itself but is simply a means of getting on the path in the right direction. Bitterness is the symptom that is produced by roots somewhere much deeper and almost always out of sight. If I want the bitterness to leave my life and my spirit I cannot stay focused exclusively on the bitterness but must have Jesus take me deeper to the source and root which continues to produce it. I'm not sure how or when that will take place, but I hope that this process of examination and attempted openness will help initiate it. If God is not intimately involved in this process of exploration and examination I will possibly be even more inoculated against an effective cure and it will take even more painful cutting and prying to get to the root and source of my problems.

This may all seem like I am getting side-tracked, but I don't think so. The heart does not know how to express itself in tidy, succinct phrases condensed into few words and I am trying to allow my heart to be expressed here. That may likely look messy in the writing but hopefully it will lead to more thorough healing when it comes.

The last phrase from this text is telling me that for anyone to reach the place described as being perfect, which really also means being mature, they will only get there in bonded relationships with others, never alone. Somehow, God has arranged things in such a way that even those who are not now alive are to be part of this bonded relationship, whatever that means. Right now I suppose, we can feel connected to those we read about in the Bible through identification with their feelings, mistakes, hopes, dreams and failures. We can certainly learn a great deal from their lives and greatly improve our own abilities to make better choices so as to avoid the painful consequences that they experienced many times. By their example we can become mature quicker because we have more to build on and benefit from than they had.

The exciting thing about this arrangement is that when we all get together in the future when everyone is alive at the same time, we will be able to personally meet these very same people that we have already partially bonded to with our hearts and the bonds will become mutual and intensely strong and deep. That interlacing of hearts in mutual compassion, love, shared pain and healing will become the impregnable fabric that will at last be the security blanket preventing sin from ever arising again throughout eternity. That is why God has set things up the way I see described in these two verses. He is building in the insurance needed, the permanent inoculation to prevent another outbreak of this terrible disease of sin from ever recurring again.

Next time I will move into the next verse to see more sources of bitterness and more medicine for healing. I can already see there is plenty to think about there. ...the sin which doth so easily beset us.

(next in series)