Avoiding Bitterness: A Casestudy

It was an old tradition to record births and marriages in a family Bible. But if some people recorded their thoughts and feelings regarding some of those people born and married, the result might seem less edifying than appropriate for a Bible. Many people want to keep records of their family, but their records would be a record of wrongs and hurts; of unwise words and unkind actions; of desertion and betrayal. Still, if they recorded all the woes and hurts and of their family in the family Bible, it still probably could not top some of the things already recorded in the Bible.

Take the story of Joseph. Joseph was the favorite son of his father Jacob and was moreover seemingly destined for greatness as witnessed by his mysterious dreams. Out of jealousy, his half-brothers attacked him, originally intending to leave him in a pit to die, and then chose instead to sell him as a slave. Joseph was taken into the land of Egypt where he worked as a slave until he was falsely accused and thrown into prison. And yet for all of that, God worked in his life so that he went from a prison to a palace, becoming exalted to the position of second-in-command to the entire nation of Egypt. In that position, he met his brothers when they traveled to Egypt to buy food and after some preliminary testing and rigamarole, Joseph revealed himself to his brothers, and the family was reunited. Jacob and his entire clan moved from Canaan into the land of Egypt. But then Jacob died.

And when Jacob died, Joseph's brothers were afraid; so afraid that they sent him a special message begging for forgiveness before coming to him in person. They were afraid that Joseph might still hold a grudge against them for what they did. They thought that he had forgiven them and been reconciled to them ONLY to spare the feelings of his father and now, with Jacob gone, he might decide to take revenge. They were afraid that Joseph, even after all this time, might still be holding unto anger; that he might still be bitter.

And if he had been, who could have blamed him? His own family had betrayed him and sold him into slavery; his own flesh and blood had plotted his destruction out of jealousy. If he had been bitter, no one would have been surprised.

Because bitterness is a common human reaction to this kind of hurt. Just as milk sours when left too long in the sun, so the human soul tends to sour in adverse circumstances. Shakespeare spoke of bitterness and revenge as being a universal human impulse. He wrote: “If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”

Bitterness is natural. But not everything that is natural is good. It is interesting that the Bible sometimes uses the word “bitter” to mean poisonous because of the fact that many poisonous plants have a bitter taste. And like those plants, bitterness is natural--and deadly. Bitterness always destroys the one who has it and it is always obvious to everyone around him--and often a bitter person themselves realizes the self-destructive tendency of their attitude.

Like a poison, bitterness must be avoided. But how do we do that? How can we avoid falling into the trap of bitterness? In this life, there will always be opportunities to become bitter; if we are to live a life free of it, we need some kind of gameplan; a strategy guide which shows the safe path around the pitfalls of bitterness. And I think we can find one by looking at the words of Joseph to his brothers at the end of his story, as recorded in Genesis 50:19-21: “And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.”

We don't avoid bitterness through denial.

This is more of a negative point than a positive one, but I think it's important to make. Many people associate forgiveness and love with naiveté and ignorance. They would picture someone who isn't bitter as a greenhorn who is too stupid or good-natured to understand or believe in the wrongdoing of others. But this wasn't the case with Joseph.  In verse 20 he clearly tells his brothers: “Ye thought evil against me.” He had no illusions about his brothers. He may have been in Egypt, but he was not in Denial. 

He was perfectly aware of what his brothers had done to him--that out of jealousy, they had plotted to kill him and then chosen instead to give him up to a life of slavery for a handful of silver. He wasn't blind to what they had done and he didn't try to excuse it; he didn't try to convince himself or them that they hadn't really meant any harm. In fact, when Joseph first met his brothers again, he put them through a long and somewhat elaborate test to see if they had changed--because he knew exactly what kind of men they had once been. Joseph was not bitter about the wrong that had been done him, but he did recognize that wrong had been done him. 

Living a life free of bitterness does not mean being oblivious to reality. Of course, it is true that often we do misinterpret or exaggerate the actions of others; often people become hurt and bitter over things that are really innocent or over things that are actually their own fault. And it is usually not our place to judge others. But none of that changes the central fact. And that fact is that, while we live in this world, we are going to experience hurt and pain caused by the sins of others. There will be people around us, perhaps very close to us, who will act in selfishness or hatred and so bring ruin into our lives. Our own friends and family may break their promises, may betray us, may speak unforgivable words or do unforgivable deeds. 

And when we face such things, our instinct is to cry out against them; to cry out for justice. And that instinct is not wrong. Such things are against the law of God. And such things will be judged in the end. We cannot and we should not simply ignore or justify them. What we can do is let go of our own bitterness. When God calls us to let go of our bitterness and to forgive, He is not calling us to shut our eyes to reality or to justify the acts of others. Joseph never tried to sugarcoat or whitewash the sins of his brothers. What he did do was forgive them. Though this isn't stated, the implication here is that long before Joseph's brothers reappeared, while he was still in Egypt doubting he would ever see his family again, he had already forgiven them; had already let go of his bitterness. 

But how could he do that? How could he look squarely at an act like that of his brothers and still forgive? How could he go through what he went through without becoming bitter?

We avoid bitterness by recognizing our relationship to God.

When Joseph's brothers came before him, he said one very interesting thing to them. Remember, that Joseph was second-in-command to Pharaoh, making him one of the most powerful people in the Middle Eastern world. He seems to have had very great power over Egypt. For the most part, what he said went. And his brothers were just some lowly shepherds that had moved into Egypt. When his brothers came before him, Genesis 50:18 says that they fell down before his face--they prostrated themselves as before royalty, and I think there was real fear in their attitude because they knew that Joseph could do whatever he wanted. If he had wanted to have them imprisoned or enslaved or executed, it seems he could have done it.

And yet, look at what Joseph said to them in verse 19: “Fear not: for am I in the place of God?” Joseph might have been on a throne, but he was not lifted up with pride. He might have been virtually crowned, but his head had not swelled. He recognized that, for all his power and authority, he was only a man, only a human being. In some ancient societies, the king was treated as a god. But Joseph was under no illusion on this point. He knew that he was not in the place of God--that as high as he was exalted, God was exalted far above him.

For him to say that he was not in the place of God mean this: That it was not his place to judge and condemn his brothers. They had sinned against God, but it wasn't Joseph's job to try to inflict punishment for it. Joseph was able to live free of bitterness because he understood very clearly that God was God and that he was just a man; that he was not in the place of God.

Because bitterness always involves taking on ourselves the role of God. It nearly always begins by forgetting who we are and where we stand in relationship to God. One preacher said that God's whole message to mankind could be summarized in four words: “I'm God; you're not.”  Where we get into trouble is when we forget that fact and try to take the place of God. An old song says that God has the whole world in his hands. When we try to take his place and hold the world in our hands, our hands end up breaking. Believing in God means believing that God is in control; that in His time, He will make all things right.

Of course, we recognize there are times when it is necessary for man to punish individuals for their sins--there is a need for civil government and church discipline. But in the final analysis, we must recognize this truth: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay. Thus saith the Lord.” We do not have the authority or the ability to set everything right. We do face real wrong in this world. And we do have a duty to oppose it. But we have to remember that God is in control and He is the one who will bring everything right in his time.

We see this in the story of Joseph. When Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery, he could have given in to bitterness and spent all his time thinking of ways to get revenge. But that wouldn't have helped him. He would have still been just a slave. But God, in his time, did bring deliverance and restoration to Joseph and a rebuke to his brothers. At the end of the story, there is no question that Joseph was in the right and his brothers in the wrong--they themselves admitted and it is clear for everyone, even today, to see. That was an end Joseph never could have brought about on his own. It was only through the power of God.

We avoid bitterness, by remembering that God is God and we are not. We have to trust God to work things out in His time. It is not our place, in most instances, to punish others for their sins. Nor is it our place, in most cases, to try to reward ourselves for our own virtues. We have to leave all that in the hands of God to work out as He sees fit. We do not have to ignore reality; instead, we have to face reality; face the reality that God is in control. And that leads us to our next point.

We avoid bitterness by looking at things from God's perspective.

The story of Joseph, as I said, is one of the most familiar of the OT stories. And there is a particular reason why it is so famous. Because it is a clear application of a Biblical truth. Here we see a reality which we know to be universally true but which we cannot usually see in a concrete way. That truth is the fact that God is control of the world and uses even the bad things in life to accomplish his purpose. This is a very obvious fact about the story of Joseph. His life is one of tragedy and injustice. He was betrayed and lied about and forgotten. He went from his home to slavery and from slavery to prison. And yet despite all that--BECAUSE of all that, he ended up in a position of power and prominence.

But this isn't just a rags-to-riches story. We shouldn't think that the most important thing here is the personal satisfaction Joseph may have felt in his change of fortune. Notice what Joseph said to his brothers in verse 20. He knew quite well how they had hurt him and what kind of evil they had plotted, yet: “God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.” Joseph suffered many terrible things because of his brothers (and others), yet because of that, not only did he personally find exaltation, but he was able to preserve the nation of Egypt from a famine which otherwise could have brought extinction. Not only did he save Egypt, but his own family. And not only that, but he provided a home for them in Egypt, where they would grow in number until, in the time of his descendants, the children of Jacob would swell to a great number and would be enabled to finally take possession of their promised land. And because of that, events were set in emotion for a moment many years later when a particular descendant of Jacob would be born in a stable on the backside of Bethlehem one starry night. God worked out all things for good, not just for Joseph personally, but for Egypt, for Joseph's whole family for generations, and ultimately for the entire human race.

This is a familiar concept, but I want to point out one thing specifically: that God's perspective is far longer and broader than ours. Of course, God does care about us about individuals. The life of every person is precious to God, more precious than the sparrows though even they cannot fall with His notice. But that doesn't change the fact that God sees the whole picture while we see only parts. He sees how our life will impact others and how one particular moment of our life will impact the whole. It is easy in the middle of a trial to think that that trial is the most important thing; it is easy to think that the only thing that matters is solving the pressing problem of the particular moment. As humans, we want justice, we want our problems solved--RIGHT NOW! But the mills of God grind slowly. God makes all things beautiful, all things right but only in his time. 

That is how we can avoid bitterness--by realizing that God sees the whole picture--that whatever we are going through at the moment is only part of something larger. I've wondered sometimes if that is how Joseph managed to make it through all the things he experienced--for he had been given dreams which seemed to point to his exaltation at the end of the story. And I wonder if it was faith in that, faith in the fact that God was working things out to a promised conclusion which gave Joseph the strength to go forward. We aren't usually given this kind of vision; we don't usually know what God is working out before it happens. Often we don't know even afterward. That's why we simply have to trust God. 

We avoid bitterness by realizing that God has a plan, a plan which goes far beyond what we can see in our present moment and that even the troubles and problems we are facing at the moment, bad as they are, can be used by God to produce something good, something better than all we can ask or think. That is a matter of perspective, but it will also have an impact on the way we live.

We avoid bitterness by following God no matter where we are.

We have to be careful with the story of Joseph. Because it comes very close to being a different kind of story. Joseph was betrayed and hurt by his brothers. But in the end, he is the one in a position of authority and they were the ones kneeling before him. He obviously didn't exact revenge on them in a physical way, but it would be easy to picture it as this was a kind of revenge. It would be easy to think of Joseph looking down on his brothers with a sort of smug satisfaction and as if he were saying: “See, I was right and you were wrong. You finally admit that. I'm finally justified.”

It would be easy to think that because that would have been an easy attitude for Joseph to have. It is the attitude many people would have had if they had been in Joseph's place. But, while we don't know all of Joseph's feelings, we see nothing of this kind of attitude in his words. In fact, his feelings seem to have been exactly the opposite. Look at verse 21: “Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them.” So far from exalting over his brothers in their moment of abasement, Joseph comforts them and promises to serve them. Do you see that: “I will nourish you, and your little ones.” That is, I am going to take care of you and your children. I will protect and provide for you. So far from taking advantage of his position to get revenge, so far from facing his brothers with smug complacency, he is promising to help them, to do something to keep them.

And I make a point out of that because it really is the keynote of the life of Joseph. Wherever we find Joseph, he was doing something. When he was put into the place of a slave in the house of Potipher, he worked as a slave and did such a good job that he was exalted to the position of steward. When he was thrown into jail, he was a model prisoner and ended up working as a sort prison warden. When he was exalted to the second-highest position in Egypt, he didn't kick back and relax but worked to keep Egypt on a firm financial standing.

Whatever happened to Joseph, he kept working. No matter where he was, he found something to do. It wasn't his fault that he ended up as a slave. It wasn't his fault that he had ended up in prison. He didn't deserve any of it and so he could have chosen to sulk and give in to self-pity. But instead, no matter what happened, he kept working. Twice in the story of Joseph, it is explicitly stated that the Lord was with him. And I think that's why he did what he did--because God was with him and he was acting to serve the Lord--not himself.

Bitterness always drives us inward. David Seamands compares bitter and unforgiving people to debt-collectors; they are people who always think others owe them something and are trying to get back, like the servant in Jesus' parable who had his fellow-servant cast into prison for his trivial debt. That is what bitterness does to us. Because we believe we have been wronged, we are always trying to get back what it is we think we deserve.

And the truth is, we may often have a real wrong--like Joseph had. Joseph had really been wronged and really did deserve compensation. But Joseph chose not to live his life as a taker, always trying to get what he deserved, but instead as a giver--as one who gives to others and helps others. The servant in the parable tried to take back what he deserved and he didn't get it. He just made himself and those around him miserable. But his king, who had been wronged far more, who was owed far more, chose to forgive his debt. That was how Joseph lived. And in that, he is a type of Christ, for Jesus who deserved all glory, laud, and honor; Jesus who as God is the one against whom all sin is an offense; the one who is wronged by every wrong; the one who has the right to avenge all wrongs--chose not to seek his own rights, not to take what he deserved, but instead emptied himself and become obedient to death, even the death of the cross.

There are wrongs in life we can never set right. And it is often not our job to try. But what we can do is to find in every situation something that we can do for God, something we can give to others. We often cannot (or should not) take back that which we deserve. But we can choose instead to give. And as we do, as we give ourselves, that will take us out of ourselves. 

You've probably heard of the dead sea, the lowest body of water on the earth. It is so low that while water flows into it, no water flows out. And for that reason, its water is bitter like the sea and is useful for nothing. That is what bitterness does--it puts us inside ourselves and leaves us useless. But when we allow ourselves to become, not a sea, but a river, a river flowing outwards giving to others, that is when God can make us to be as sweet and fruitful as a mountain stream.

I originally started working on this study before the government shutdown, in the weeks leading up to St. Patrick's Day; a day that has come to be associated with Irish culture and tradition. It is a day of festivity and glamor. But the story of St. Patrick did not begin with festivity or glamor. It began with tragedy and oppression--not unlike the story of Joseph. Irish raiders captured Patrick when he was just a boy and carried him to Ireland where he lived as a slave. Like Joseph, he was a slave in a strange country, cut off from his family and his home. He suffered for the sins of others; because of those who had stolen him away from his home.

He was able to escape from slavery and from Ireland. And you would think he would never have gone back. You would think he would have become an enemy of Ireland and the Irish people. But he became a Christian and God appeared to him in a vision, telling him to go back to Ireland and preach. And so he did. He preached in the country which had once enslaved him. He preached in a country which, because of his preaching, tried to kill him. He preached, refusing to be deterred by any of those things. And because of his preaching, he helped to establish a thriving church in Ireland which did much to preserve Christian tradition through the tumult of history.

Like Joseph, Patrick could have given in to bitterness. But he did not. We may never face anything quite a traumatizing as these men did, but even if we do, we can also avoid bitterness. That doesn't mean living in cluelessness, ignorant and oblivious to the evil around us. We can recognize the wrong that people are doing without becoming bitter about it. We don't have to shut our eyes to reality--but instead, we should focus our eyes on the most important reality, on God. We must recognize that God is in control and trust Him to work things out in his time. We must see that God's perspective is different and He sees what is truly important and so we must trust his working. And we must determine to follow God, to work for God, to do something for God no matter where we are or what happens. If we live our life like that, with our eyes focused on God, we will live a life free of bitterness.

If Patrick had given in to bitterness, nobody would have blamed him. But if he had, he would not have been a saint. If Joseph had given in to bitterness, nobody would have blamed him. But if he had, we would not have his story recorded in Scripture. If we give in to bitterness because of the situations we face, it may be that no one will blame us. But if we do, we have failed to live up to our example--not just Joseph or St. Patrick, but Jesus who gave his life for his enemies, and died for the sake of those who killed him. The example of Christ is the opposite of bitterness. The words of Paul summarize the matter: “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.” (Ephesians 5:31-32)