christian living on Bitterness

One of the challenges, at least in the western church, is an inability to deal with our wounds in a healthy way. Our training as Christians has been focused on Bible studies, small groups, and Sunday ...

Forgiveness vacillates like this. It has fits and starts, good days and bad. Anger intermingled with love. Irregular mercy. We make progress only to make a wrong turn. Step forward and fall back. But ...

Patience is love for the long haul; it is bearing up under difficult circumstances, without giving up or giving in to bitterness. Patience means working when gratification is delayed. It means taking ...

The psalmist describes the experience of “keeping silent” about sin as a kind of disintegration. His bones turn to powder (Ps. 32:3). His energy dissipates, “the very pith of my body decomposed as if ...

Judgment and joy don’t go well together – no, judgment leads to grumbling. I’m sure you’ve met people in your life who are hard to please – maybe even your parents, or your boss. People for whom n...

The singular mark of patience is not endurance or fortitude but hope. To be impatient . . . is to live without hope. Patience is grounded in the Resurrection. It is life oriented toward a future that ...

A 2007 study conducted at Fuller Theological Seminary found patient people were less likely to suffer from depression. Patient people were found to be more grateful and expressed they felt more connec...

Patience is a hard discipline. It is not just waiting until something happens over which we have no control: the arrival of the bus, the end of the rain, the return of a friend, the resolution of a co...

Gracious God, you tend to the earth as your vineyard, longing for it to bring fruit. You want our society and our lives to look more and more like the Kingdom of Heaven. We work against your plans, so...

We grow in part by confessing our faults and weaknesses to each other (James 5:16; Eccl. 4:10). If we are always being strong and without needs, we are not growing, and we are setting ourselves up for...

The ultimate proof of total forgiveness takes place when we sincerely petition the Father to let those who have hurt us off the hook-even if they have hurt not only us, but also those close to us.

An experienced gardener knows the value of not watering their tomatoes. Well, there's a little more to it, but that's the headline. Suppose you go to the nursery in the spring and get a tom...

Corrie ten Boom told of not being able to forget a wrong that had been done to her. She had forgiven the person, but she kept rehashing the incident and so couldn’t sleep. Finally Corrie cried out to ...

Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.

The Celebrant and People together, all kneeling Most holy and merciful Father: We confess to you and to one another, and to the whole communion of saints in heaven and on earth, that we have sinne...

Waiting is the hardest work of hope.

Holy and merciful God, we confess to you and to one another, and in the company of the communion of saints, that we have sinned by our own fault, in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and ...

The man who refuses to forgive destroys the bridge over which he himself must cross.

Teach me to feel another's woe, to hide the fault I see, that mercy I to others show, that mercy show to me.

Lord Jesus Christ, you call us to high standards, and we continuously fall short. You tell us to turn the other cheek and go the extra mile; to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. No...

Pope John Paul I recounted a story about Jonathan Swift and his servant. One morning at an inn, Swift asked his servant why his boots hadn’t been cleaned. The servant replied, “I didn’t see the point,...

Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws....

Waiting isn’t an in-between time. Instead, this often-hated and under-appreciated time has been a silent force that has shaped our social interactions. Waiting isn’t a hurdle keeping us from intimacy ...

In our culture slow is a pejorative. When somebody has a low IQ, we dub him or her slow. When the service at a restaurant is lousy, we call it slow. When a movie is boring, again, we complain that it’...

James 5:16 invites us to confess our sins so that we might be healed. Let us go before our Creator in humility and confession. Lord Almighty, we come to you in humility today. We have sought security...

In his introduction to Scott Sauls’ Book, Irresistable Faith, Bob Goff tells a story about a summer adventure hitchhiking across New England, which would ultimately lead to staying with a hermit in Ma...

Sometimes moments of forgiveness and friendship come from unexpected places. In 2018, the comedian Pete Davidson appeared on the “Weekend Update” segment of Saturday Night Live (SNL). Davidson made a ...

Heavenly Father, give us hearts that wait with faith. Build in us the assurance that you are at work and in control. Forgive us for our impatience, our uneasiness, and our wandering desires when we do...

A wound that goes unacknowledged and unwept is a wound that cannot heal.

Gracious God, we know that You have forgiven us in Jesus Christ, but we often remain slow to forgive one other. You have sent Your Spirit to reconcile us to each other, but we resist Your work to bind...