Bitter Roots in the Landfill

“We don't have problems, we have opportunities”. That was the company line I was given soon after I joined a hand-picked team of designers and engineers at Whirlpool a number of years ago to design a completely, radically different washing machine from scratch. We had been assigned not to just rework or modify any existing design but to think way outside the box and come up with something completely new that would challenge each one of us to the maximum of our creativity. It was one of the most enjoyable jobs I have ever had in my life, primarily because of the freedom to utilize my creativity in teamwork with others who were not afraid of change.

But when we came up with seemingly impossible obstacles in the progress of our design – and that quickly became the norm – we were instructed to view them from the perspective of the old adage quoted at the beginning. We were to change our whole frame of reference, the fundamental way we perceived situations at a deeper level of our mind. This presented some real challenges for me.

My first reaction was one of secret but very intense skepticism. I had not worked there all that long but I was already becoming familiar with the enormous amount of hypocrisy that is so prevalent in the corporate world. It seemed that every few months top management would be taken by the latest craze in the world of motivation and success formulas from expensive corporate consultants and everyone would be required to go through some new intensive mental training program to learn the latest buzzwords and psychological policyspeak until the next consultant guru came along and all of the previous clichés were eclipsed with the latest round of imposed catchphrases.

Needless to say, I quickly caught on that people who had been around for awhile were quite used to all these mind games and had learned to talk the talk simply to keep themselves in favor with those who determined their salary. But they also tended to maintain an inner opinion that was seldom swayed by all the external noise and hoopla. What I found, especially among older engineers was a very deep level of suspicion and doubt about the potential for any real progress which became a problem for me when I wanted to propose radically different approaches to engineering made possible by the rapid advance of computers that they were unfamiliar with.

This problem tended to bring me around full circle to the problem I had myself – very deep-seated skepticism. The first time I heard an engineer declare that we did not have problems, just opportunities inwardly I sneered with contempt. “Yeah, right” I thought, “that's just another cliché we are supposed to spout off. But everyone knows that these are still really problems.” To me this was just another symptom of the pervasive corporate hypocrisy that was becoming apparent to me and in addition it directly crossed my natural skepticism. Insisting that I think and talk about problems as really opportunities not only irritated me a bit but had the potential for creating a spirit of bitterness that I had to keep hidden if I wanted to continue to be a part of this elite team.

So why did this come to my mind this morning? Well, I just read from my morning devotional book about the thousands of hours of painful and intensive training, effort, energy and pain that goes into the execution of just one well-planned successful football maneuver. Much of that training cannot really be considered that much fun while it is being endured, but the ultimate objective when realized brings a great deal of satisfaction and, in this arena, a great deal of glory for a short time. But it is also true that if that training was not willingly endured but was aborted due to the interference of bitterness taking over the mind, the potential champion would not be formed in the mind and body of the athlete and he would be replaced by someone else more willing to endure the hardships of training to achieve the ultimate goal.

It is starting to be even more clear to me the grave dangers of allowing the poison of bitterness to remain in my life. It appears that bitterness may be one of the worst enemies of success, achievement and victory that there is. It suffocates hope, it infects the heart with depression and discouragement, it is debilitating and it weakens friendships. The more I become aware of the symptoms of this poison the more painfully aware I become of the evidence of those symptoms throughout most of my life and my relationships. It is becoming very clear that I desperately need a detox program to rid my system of this pernicious poison. But it has so deeply infected my heart that I cannot do it on my own. I need a really good Doctor as well as skilled medical assistants to help me in my recovery.

What I am learning here in Hebrews 12 is the exposure of more and more roots of bitterness that are grown all through the soil of my life. Trials and discipline have been sources of bitterness for me. Broken promises and neglect, lack of acceptance of love have long been a source of bitterness for me. The unfairness of life and the lies about God that I inherited as well as the ones I developed have been reinforcements of the bitter conclusions that I have often subconsciously drawn about God and His treatment of me. The seeming randomness of evil in this world and the unanswered questions that plague everyone about life are additional fuel for the intensifying of bitterness when they are allowed to fester in my heart. All of these things and more have added together to simmer far beneath the surface in the cesspool of bitterness that has long remained hidden out of sight.

But like any landfill filled with garbage, the unresolved baggage in my heart has not failed to produce the methane gases of bitterness that can seep to the surface at times and produce foul odors and unpleasant relationships. This bad atmosphere has likely kept me at a distance from many that I have longed to connect with at a much deeper level but could never do so, much to my frustration and grief. These events just added to the fuel for the landfill as I tried to bury each succeeding failure and the pain of lost friendships into the growing landfill of my heart that has by now become quite a sizable mountain. What a mess I have. And with roots full of bitterness grown all through this landfill it is no wonder that I have such a difficult time producing decent fruit on the limbs of my external life. The same sap that flows in the roots will eventually feed the fruit as well.

Like Paul I feel very much like crying out, O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Romans 7:24 NKJV) My only hope is to finish the exclamation with the same conclusion that Paul had to make in the very next words.

Thanks be to God –through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 7:25 - 8:2 NIV)

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