Let all bitterness, anger and wrath, shouting and slander be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ (Ephesians 4:31-32, CSB).
The holidays can be hard. I think Thanksgiving might be the hardest of all. It is a week of family, feasting, football–and often fighting. Family members who don’t see eye to eye may find their opinions hardening into anger or resentment. Left unattended, anger grows into bitterness that serves only to divide. It may seem a strange thought, bitterness at Thanksgiving, but when hearts harden, gratitude is impossible.
“Anger is not bitterness. Bitterness can go on eating at a man’s heart and mind forever.” (L’Engle 158).
Bitterness led Cain to kill his brother (Genesis 4). Bitterness left Jonah sulking by the remnants of a withered vine (Jonah 4). The psalmist recognized the damage bitterness caused to his innermost being before acknowledging that “my flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever” (Psalm 74). Bitterness makes people hard and thorny, hard to love, and often lonely.
Paul wrote to the Ephesians that they needed to remove bitterness from their hearts because in the long run, bitterness and the Holy Spirit cannot be together. One will grow and the other will fade. It is hard to let go of bitterness when we’ve been treated poorly or wronged time and time again. Even when we think we have grown beyond the insults and pain, family gatherings around Thanksgiving often bring back all the hard feelings and anger, and bitterness begins to show itself again.
Forgiving others who don’t care how they’ve hurt us may be the hardest thing we do as believers.
The only way to truly root out bitterness is to forgive. Paul instructed the Ephesians to “be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God also forgave you in Christ” (Ephesians 4:32). We rebel against that instruction, thinking that our anger is justified because the offender isn’t sorry, and in fact, continues to engage in hurtful behavior, or worse, pretends nothing ever happened. But the call to forgive doesn’t require the other party to repent. “Forgive us our trespasses,” we pray, “as we forgive those who trespass against us” (Matthew 6). Forgiving others who don’t care how they’ve hurt us may be the hardest thing we do as believers. But for us to truly default to grace and for us to grow in faith, forgiving others is necessary.
When we gather together for feasting and football this year, let us all begin the morning with forgiveness, letting God handle the hearts of others while we pursue our new selves in Christ, renewed in mind and growing into maturity measured by Christ’s fullness. Let us speak the truth in love, beginning with “by the grace of God, I forgive.” Then we are free to celebrate the day with gratitude for a savior who forgave us.
Resources:
The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers.
L’Engle, Madeleine. A Swiftly Tilting Planet. 1978. Square Fish Edition, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR), 2007.
Defaulting to Grace 