Becoming bitter towards another person

Becoming bitter towards another person

It is too easy to find reasons for discontent towards another when they act in a superior manner towards your view that has been corrupted.   If someone feels you are trampling on their position of authority and responds in a way that can overrule your expertise in any situation, it will raise the anger within you and create a tension of your own weakness.  

Some types of discontentment can create feelings of dejection, doldrums, dreariness, and a multitude of other defining negative adjectives.  Allowing yourself to absorb that kind of astuteness that will not be in your favor.  In other words what might have been an ability to understand the situation you’ve encountered becomes a reversal of shrewdness and a failure to overlook the obvious discontentment with this person’s attitude.

This discontentment parallels jealousy, envy, or resentment towards another and can pull a person down ending up hurting you while the one who represents the encroachment on your personal issues goes away with no thoughts of the incident.  

We know the times that Jesus more than once was ostracized when his divinity constantly was attacked by those who should have seen  who this is.  They were experts in the Old Testament Scriptures, the constant prophecies from numerous prophets and the historical events where God was always correcting their ancestors for a failure to listen to his loving guidance and the promise of a Messiah to end the evil attacks of Satan.  

So, when any of us finds the unprovoked attacks on our right of reasonable giftedness to lead by grace we must refer back to the many scripture verses where Jesus became a laughing stock perpetrated by those who knew but refused to see the forest for the trees.

I have found the same scenario in my ministry and it has taught me to bear up under what may become a false approach to accepting what Jesus had to endure.  If we follow the example of Christ, the rejection, the crucifixion, and the resurrection, then we too will rise beyond the evils that confront us as well. 

“A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.”  If our Lord Jesus was treated as this, we likewise shall be treated as well.  (Mk. 6: 4).

Humility is the necessary grace that must be sought and absorbed by us who may find this scenario a reality and move on to the next level of our ministry looking beyond the selfishness of others, even when they might be unaware of their ignorance.  They, like us, are God’s children and our brothers or sisters.

Ralph B. Hathaway