Devotion - Hebrews 12:14-15 "Root Out Bitterness"

Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord:  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;  -Hebrews 12:14-15

I'm not sure what spurred me on to write a devotion about this.  I've been praying a lot lately about doing some blogging because it's been a long time since I've done any and I feel like being led to do this.  So, I was out in the garden this morning and I was searching for the bishops weed that keeps coming back every year now.  About 5 years ago, my brother gave me some beautiful transplants from his garden and, unbeknownst to me, intertwined in the root system was this bishops weed.  When it popped up, my mom saw it in my garden and told me I better take care of it quickly or it will take over the whole garden.  I kind of liked the look of it, with some pretty little white flowers - I justified it being there.  Ah, yes, you probably see where I'm going with this.  Well, within a month, it did take over, and over, and over.   It killed quite a few flowers in my garden.  I carefully dug up the roots, and thinking I had pulled out enough of the roots, left it to die.  It didn't die.  It came back quickly.  Each year I kept digging it up since then, trying in vain to leave the plants undisturbed that my brother had given me.  Last year, I think I finally got it all.  I ended up to a doing a radical plantectomy to my garden and I dug up the plants my brother had given me, along with every single root hair of the bishops weed I could find.  Praise God, it appears that it's not coming back, so far.

This is how bitterness takes over our lives.  At first, it starts off real small, like some little root fibers buried deep.  You justify it being there - 'Well, she hurt me.  She only tries to make my life miserable.' or 'What has God done for me?  Look at my life!'  There's always an excuse for bitterness.  It looks nice in the garden of your soul.  It gives you an excuse for why you are the way you are.  It gives you an excuse for not living the way God wants you to live.  I've been there in my life.  I know.   I know hurt and pain.  I know being wronged by people.  Praise God, though, that He's taught me how to be forgiving.  When you look at the big picture of things, it's very humbling that God can forgive me, that He knows that depths of my heart and loves me the same.  Who am I, that God can know me like that and still look down on me and smile?  If God can give me love like that, it's the least I can do, to love others back.  How many times and in how many ways have I offended God in my life and He still loves me?  Too many times, I'm afraid.  If a perfect God can be that patient with me, it's the least I can do to be patient with others.  Even now, every once in a while, I have to be careful of a complaining spirit, that it doesn't plant a seed of bitterness in me.  Be careful of bitterness.  When you find that you're being bitter toward someone, pray for them.  Root out the bitterness before it takes over your life and kills all the good things in you.