Once again we find ourselves snowed in. God has His reasons. 🙂. I pray you find strength today. We have a devotion and a message prepared for you. I pray you find it a blessing. During this slow down take the time to pray, hear the Word of God and reflect on the things of God. Fix some hot soup. Perhaps brew some coffee. Let’s talk about the good things of God on a snowy Sunday morning.
The Cure for Bitterness
Bitterness does not burst forth in a single moment. It begins as a quiet wound—a past hurt lodged deep in the heart like a splinter hidden beneath the skin. At first, the pain seems bearable, even righteous: “They wronged me,” or “Why did God permit this?” But hurts left untended do not fade. They compound. Layer upon layer, year after year, resentment builds in the fertile soil of the soul until what was once mere sorrow hardens into something far more deadly: bitterness.
I do not speak of fleeting emotion. The Scripture names it plainly—a root. In (Hebrews 12:15) we are exhorted:
“Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled”
A root works unseen, drawing life from buried pain, spreading tendrils through the hidden places until it breaks the surface. When it does, it troubles the bearer—manifesting in negativity that clouds every thought, harsh words that cut like thorns, skepticism that doubts even the good intentions of others—and worse, it defiles many. One poisoned heart can taint a family, a fellowship, a generation. The father that sits brooding, mind frantically racing, can easily fall into a heart of doubt. That environment is the breeding ground for troubling those around us.
Nowhere is this tragic progression laid bare more starkly than in the house of David. It began with a single sin—David’s adultery with Bathsheba, his calculated murder of Uriah the Hittite. Though David repented and found forgiveness, the consequences rolled forth like a gathering storm. The prophet Nathan declared that “the sword shall never depart from your house” (2 Samuel 12:10). And so it came.
The blade first fell on the child born of that union; the infant sickened and died. But the sorrow did not end there. In time, Amnon, David’s eldest son, feigning illness, lured his half-sister Tamar into his chamber, overpowered her cries for mercy, and took advantage of her. Then, in cruel contempt, he thrust her out, desolate and shamed. Tamar, once radiant, withdrew into her brother Absalom’s house, living as one whose life had been stripped away. She became what the writer would call “a desolate woman” (2 Samuel 13:20).
David heard of the outrage and his anger burned. Yet he did nothing. No rebuke fell on Amnon. No justice was sought for Tamar. No healing was offered to the wounded family. The king, who once pursued God’s heart, now sat passive while iniquity festered.
That silence became the fertile ground for the root. Absalom nursed the hurt for two full years. The wound compounded—anger turned to cold rage, rage to embittered resolve. He spoke no word to Amnon, good or bad, but hatred took root deep within. At last, in a feast of feigned goodwill, Absalom arranged his brother’s murder, spilling blood at the table (2 Samuel 13:23–29). Absalom fled, but the poison had spread. Tamar withered further in isolation and the family fractured beyond mending.
These kinds of roots deepen in churches, families and in the hearts of individuals. The bitterness in Absalom did not stop at vengeance against his brother. It would turn against his father. Years later, that same embittered heart stirred rebellion—stealing the hearts of Israel, conspiring in Hebron, driving David from Jerusalem in shame. The sword Nathan foretold cut deepest in the father’s own household, all because a past hurt was left unhealed, compounding until it defiled many.
This is the sobering truth of (Hebrews 12:15). The “root of bitterness” springs not merely from feeling wronged, but from failing to grasp the grace of God in the midst of pain, from allowing unresolved hurt to grow unchecked until it bears poisonous fruit. It troubles the soul with skepticism toward God’s goodness, harshness toward others, negativity that poisons every conversation. And it spreads: one bitter heart can sow discord in a home, distrust in a church, division among brethren.
The pattern is clear. A betrayal in marriage festers into distrust that shadows every future bond. An injustice suffered hardens into cynicism that questions every authority, even the Lord’s. A childhood wound, never confronted, grows into words that wound the next generation. Sin separates, as Isaiah cried: “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God” (Isaiah 59:2). When we turn from His grace to nurse the hurt, it is a false strength. The anger and bluster that bubbles to the surface does not hurt enemies. It hurts those around us and poisons the individual.
Yet the Lord has not left us to drink the bitter waters alone. Recall the weary march of Israel after the Red Sea triumph—three days into the wilderness, thirst burning in every throat, and then Marah: waters that mocked their hope, so bitter they could not drink. The place was named for its poison—Marah, bitterness itself. The people murmured against Moses; what shall we drink? Moses cried unto the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. Moses took it, cast it into the bitter depths, and behold—the waters were made sweet. What was undrinkable became life-giving; what poisoned the camp became provision for the journey.
This was no mere natural remedy. It was a shadow, a prefiguring, pointing forward to the greater Branch. Long before, Isaiah had prophesied: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit” (Isaiah 11:1). That Branch is Christ—cut down, laid low in suffering, yet raised to bring forth life. He is the tree God shows us at out own bitter waters, the One cast into the bitter streams of our lives. When resentment compounds, when past hurts harden the heart into poison, it is Christ who enters—His cross thrown into the midst of our bitterness. He who bore the curse on the tree absorbs our poison; He who tasted gall makes the bitter sweet. The root that would defile many is uprooted by His grace; the waters once undrinkable flow with mercy, quenching the soul’s deepest thirst.
It is here that we drink deep of living water. It is here that we do not allow the desert to define us. It is here that we transcend the wilderness of sin and we follow the one that would be “a root out of a dry ground”. The death, burial and resurrection is the answer to bitterness. It is the joy that permeates our conversation. It is the smile in a grandfather’s eyes. It is the enduring hope in the father that comes home weary, but know that all things work together for good. This overarching cure for bitterness is th answer to the poison found in the wilderness.
