The story of the Exodus from Egypt is one of the most powerful stories in the Bible. We watch an Almighty God do something that human culture said could never be done. God freed His people from slavery without them having to fight a battle. There was no stand-off. There was no big war. There was no fight. It was simply God fighting for the freedom of His people in a way that only God could. He did more than set His people free; He also proved to the polytheistic Egyptian culture that there is only One God. Each plague was designed to challenge and then belittle each of the main Egyptian gods of the time. He sent such a powerful message that Pharaoh finally relented and released thousands slaves to go and be completely free from their masters. It was an incredible deliverance, and it fully showcased the delivering power of God.
However, there is a little note in the middle of all of this that I find incredibly interesting. In Exodus 8:22 it says, "‘But on that day I will deal differently with the land of Goshen, where my people live; no swarms of flies will be there, so that you will know that I, the Lord, am in this land.'" This is the first notation that the plague would not affect the Israelites. This makes me think that it is possible that God's people had been affected by the plagues up until this point. The power of God negatively affecting His own people? Why? Why were they not protected from these things?
Now, imagine that you are standing at the edge of that great Red Sea. You have just watched all of your friends and family come through that great divide of waters. You are standing free on the other side. The freedom dance is going through the ranks, but you're not dancing. You're standing there staring and wondering, "Why? Why did 400 years pass before God did this? Why did my little brother(s) have to be thrown into the Nile? Why did my father die because he couldn't physically handle the strain of slavery? Why did God not care then?"
It is so easy to point fingers at the children of Israel in the book of Exodus. We call them whiners and complainers. We say, "How could they not have faith?!" But today I ask you, given the same situation would you have had faith? Do we not do the same? Do we not look at the experiences of our life, or even the world as a whole, and get caught in the trap of "Why would a good God, who supposedly cares about me, allow ______."
These are the thoughts that must have been in their minds because the very first thing they faced after they crossed the sea was a place called "Marah." God saw the bitterness in their hearts. He saw that it would destroy them if they didn't deal with that first. He wanted to help them be free of it because He knew the damage it would do if they didn't get rid of it.
We find this word again in Ruth 1:20, and it has an eerily similar context. Here is a daughter of Israel who was not spared from a horrible famine. She chose to take matters into her own hands and take her family place where there was bread. While there, she lost her husband and sons. When she came home, she had lost her home and lands. She left full and returned empty. She saw all the pain that she had gone through and said:
"Call me Mara"
Label me 'Bitterness', because that is all that God has for me. Pain. Hurt. Fear. Anxiety. That is all I have ever gotten from God. You may as well call me what I am. Bitter.
She found herself hopeless and in need. She had been in that place before. She comes across as "used to" having nothing. Her attitude is almost a resigned "It's never going to get better anyway. God just hates me, apparently." But something affected her and helped her change.
You see, there is an antidote to bitterness. It's called Grace. Grace is what causes you to stop in your tracks, mouth open, incredulous. "You value me like that? No one has ever cared about me that way. No one has ever loved me. Why would you do this?" That's what Boaz and Ruth did for this lady.
The "Mara" we meet in Ruth 1 has completely disappeared by Ruth 4. She is, instead, replaced with a woman so full of love that she cares for a baby she has no physical relation to as if he is her own son. Grace changed a woman of bitterness into a woman of love. Grace changed a woman with walls so high she didn't want her old friends to talk to her, to a woman who had a close "family" filled with people who simply cared about her. She learned to love again because of Grace. She learned to praise again because of Grace. She learned to trust again because of Grace. Our last picture of this self-professed woman of bitterness is her with her hands raised in thanks to God. Grace conquered bitterness.
From Naomi's story we see that bitterness-fighting grace can come from God and others. It can be shown to us by our family, our friends, complete strangers, and Christians. It is of course given to us by God, but sometimes He uses the hands of those around us to show it. This means that when it comes time for us to show grace to someone, we need to do so. We are most likely the vessel that God is using to pour grace into their life and draw them to Him.
We can nod our heads to that and say, “Yes, I need to show grace to people.” But then we forget that we ourselves are people. Have you shown grace to yourself? Have you decided to stop holding yourself to an impossible standard. To let yourself make mistakes and learn from them? Self-grace mixed with God-grace deletes bitterness. Not without the work of God can we be free from bitterness, but not without the work of ourselves can we be free from bitterness.
I recently read an incredible analogy from a devotion called “Winning the War in Your Mind.” I would like to share an excerpt of it here:
Let’s say you hate an ugly tree in your yard. You want that tree gone. Finally, you decide the time has come to take care of the problem. So you march into your yard with a small handsaw. You pick an ugly branch and cut it off the tree. You smile and walk back into the house, triumphantly singing. The next day you are shocked to see that the tree is still standing strong. As you stare out the window, you could almost swear it’s smirking at you.
I know. The analogy is absurd. You would never try to kill a tree by just removing a branch. Because the branch obviously isn’t the problem. The tree is the problem. Actually, the root system of the tree is the main culprit. If you don’t remove the root system when you cut down the tree, it could still grow back.
Hebrews 12:15 says this: “ See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”
Wait.... you mean that the grace of God isn’t enough? That’s not what it says. It says that you can “fall short” of the grace of God because of a root of bitterness inside. It will cause trouble for yourself and for others to have that root buried, undisturbed, in your heart. I don’t know about you, but I’m not interested in challenging the power of the grace of God in my life. I am not interested in losing Grace because of Bitterness. If I have to choose Bitterness or Grace, I am choosing Grace.
Bitterness is a hard master. We look at those children of Israel and we say, “Man. They had a reason to be angry.” Yes, they did. And you know what? You and I can say that about ourselves. But is it worth it to be angry? Is it worth it to live every day in a cage of bitterness? What are we gaining by it? Division in our family. Frustration at work. Trouble for myself. Defiling of others. That doesn’t sound very good to me.... but what other option is there?
Do you want to be free of bitterness? Do what Moses did... Rip out the tree. Roots and all. (Exodus 15:25) The roots are your thoughts. Let grace cover your thoughts. Choose to be renewed in your mind every day. Challenge thoughts of bitterness by making them view the grace of God. When we do this, “Why am I _______, God? I’ve served for so many years. I’ve never walked away from you! Why is this happening to me?” Becomes “The Lord is my strength and my shield. My heart hopes in Him and he helps me. My heart will leap for joy. With my song I will praise Him.”
Change your thoughts, change your words. Change your words, change your actions. Change your actions, change your future. Through the grace of God we have the power to be free from ANY root of bitterness. We can have a renewed mind, one that isn't affected by thoughts distorted by pain or bitterness. We can be truly free. Whom the Son sets free is free indeed.
The best part of this whole exchange isn’t just the difference in our minds... it is the promise that came IMMEDIATELY after Moses ripped out the tree.... And what was God’s response? “He said, “I am the Lord, who heals you.”” (Exodus 15:26) What is waiting on the other side of this exchange? It is not just a pretending the problem never happened or that the pain wasn’t there. It is not just putting a Band-Aid over the hurt and pushing it way down so that you don’t feel it any more...
IT IS HEALED.
God takes the root of bitterness you give Him and he replaces it with healing. Do you want to be free? Rip out the root. Do you want to be healed? Rip out the root. Do you want to stop struggling with depression from the very real pain in your life? Change your thoughts to God-thoughts and rip out the root! Let the grace of God cover you. Let the grace of a church family help you. Have grace with yourself to just get up and try again every single day. You can be free and you WILL be healed.
