The awful taste of bitterness

Not long ago, for the umpteenth time I shared a story from my sorted past with a group of folks about how I allowed hardcore bitterness to take root in my heart. I like to use this story as an example of how it is more hurtful to ourselves to harbor un-forgiveness and bitterness rather than it is to the person that has wronged us – yet we do it anyway. Without going into great detail I’ll give you the framework of the issue I suffered through.

At one point or another I’ve often found myself in periods of financial troubles. I'm just guessing here, but I suspect I'm not the only one. About eighteen years ago a situation stemmed from one of those episodes. I decided to sell my bass boat in order to come up with enough money to pay off my Ford pickup and rid myself of a truck payment at a time when I was really struggling to pay my monthly bills. On the way from the sell I stopped in a fast-food joint to grab a bite to eat, and lo and behold I ran into a close friend. I had not seen him in several years so we sat together and as we ate I shared with him my financial situation. He soon stopped me and began telling me about his much greater financial problem. Long story short – I ended up “loaning” him the money that I planned on using to pay off my truck. He assured me he would give me the money back by the end of the week. Guess what – it never happened!

The fact that someone I respected as much as I did him suckered me out of my money was bad enough, but when others that knew what he had done didn’t standup for me in the situation I was really hurt. I’m not sure what I expected them to do but whatever it was, they didn’t do it. My hurt turned to bitterness and I vowed to disown all of them. I went nearly eight years without speaking to any of them. I made up my mind that if I ever ran across this fellow again I would probably go to jail for doing something really bad to him. And this is where the situation stayed for years and years. It didn’t fester or get worse as in some cases of misgivings, I was simply resolved in how I felt, and refused to budge from my position.

Not until 2006 when I asked God to forgive me of my sins and take control of my life was I able to sit this issue aside. My beloved two-tone blue, extra cab Ford Ranger, with the sporty wheel package had been long gone via the way of the repo-man, yet I was stuck right there in the same mud-hole for nearly sixteen years. But how could I expect God to forgive me for all that I had done, when I couldn’t forgive someone else of merely stealing money from me. I realized that I had to let go and forgive in order to take hold of real forgiveness. It was a very valuable lesson that still plays a vital role in my life today. Nowadays regardless of the situation I choose to forgive immediately, because that’s exactly what my Lord did for me.

Let me ask you, “Is there someone out there that you’ve not yet forgiven?” Maybe it was a really, really, I mean really bad thing they did to you. Sexual abuse or worse.
Maybe they caused you embarrassment, or humiliation. Was their actions or words a result of plain ol’ meanness? Or maybe they too stole from you, or did they somehow physically injure you? Whatever it may have been you were left with the awful taste of bitterness toward them.

Yes, this is the “norm” for our world, isn’t it? But have you forgiven them, really, truly forgiven them yet? Maybe it’s that they said something unkind to you, or about you. Maybe they didn’t get you a Christmas gift last year, and so this year you’ve decided to return the favor. Perhaps it’s been so long ago that you can’t even remember what caused the fall-out. You just know that it must’ve been really important at the time.

You hear people use the old adage I forgive, but I don’t forget (and actually I’ve been guilty of that myself in the past) but what if God used that same standard? Would he really be a God worthy of all our praise and honor? His word tells us that we must (not should) but must forgive all those that have transgressed against us, despite how severe of an incident in order to be counted as one of His own.


As in my situation I couldn’t accept or even expect God to forgive me of my many transgressions, (and trust me, many of them were a lot worse than stealing money from him) if I weren’t willing to sincerely and permanently forgive my friend as well as anyone else that had wronged me. Oh yeah, I had to ask forgiveness for my own actions and attitude toward others as well. I like the fact that God not only forgives us, but He removes the past sin from our relationship with Him - as far as the east is from the west. Yeah, I like that about Him a lot!


If you reside in the great state of Tennessee you probably know all too well a few weeks ago the University of Tennessee forced its head football coach, Phillip Fulmer to resign. This, after seventeen years as the head coach, and approximately thirty-eight years of total service to the school. Everyone, football fan or not seems to have an opinion of the situation here in the Volunteer State. This so-called firing has received a lot of negative attention from the national sports shows on our televisions and radios as well. After all, Fulmer holds one of the highest winning percentages of active coaches. His program for the most part has steered clear of any type of serious violation of rules by the governing body that oversees collegiate sports. But all of that aside, his work was found not good enough by the powers-to-be - so out the gate he goes.

The reason I include this tidbit of sports trivia is not because I have a strong opinion about who should be coaching football for the Vols, rather it’s to share something I’ve learned from watching and listening to this process. You see, Coach Fulmer could very easily be bitter about how he’s been treated considering all that he’s given back to his alma mater over the years. After all, his predecessor left the school a very bitter person when the termination of his employment was handled in a similar manner some seventeen years earlier. Yet Fulmer, as expected by those that admire his true character more so than his coaching ability has handled this event with a great deal of dignity and self-control.

He appears (to me anyway) not as a man that is angry, yet rather as if he’s had his heart broken by the one he loves. Numerous times we’ve seen him struggle to fight back the tears during an interview, or on the sidelines. We’ve heard him reminisce about the good times, and the good people he has shared life with at the school. He has shown true sadness in saying goodbye at a time when he really doesn’t want to leave. He’s handled it all exactly how he has lived his life in front of the public eye (and I suspect in private as well) - with great class. Something we don’t often see from those involved in the profession of high dollar sports or in any other corner of our society.


Over the past month I’ve seen and heard numerous interviews Coach Fulmer has been involved with. I’ve listened as reporters and commentators have tried to lead him down the road of saying something negative about the school and the administrators that have made this decision, yet to no avail. Fulmer has refused to be coerced into saying anything that could be considered by some to be justified even though for him it would be out of character. Instead he chose to made a remarkably precise observation when asked by a local newsperson a couple of weeks ago if deep down didn’t he feel at least a little bitter about how all of this has played out. And Fulmer responded by saying in his very familiar style of humility: “Let me explain to you what bitterness is. Bitterness is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die from it and I won’t allow myself do go there.”

Coach Fulmer is so right! When we allow ourselves to become bitter at another person or even at a situation it is indeed as if we’ve chose to drink poison. We don’t want to die, but sometimes we want the one that has offended us to. When we’ve been hurt, mistreated, disrespected, or simply snubbed we most certainly don’t feel a need to punish ourselves but rather we want our persecutors to be. Yet we drink the poison anyway!

What I’ve found through my experiences and from watching the lives of others, such as Phillip Fulmer is that when we allow ourselves to become engulfed in bitterness it's then we are least like our Savior Jesus Christ. Even the slightest degree of bitterness moves us in the wrong direction and away from the Cross and it eventually opens us up to the temptation of so many other sins as well. I don’t think there could be a better word to describe the awful, nasty taste that comes from a mindset and heartfelt feeling of bitterness than the word "bitter", can you?

Just possibly there’s someone out there that needs to give themselves and others a very special and much over due Christmas gift this year – the gift of forgiveness? doug