Look after each other so that none of you fails to receive the grace of God. Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many. (Hebrews 12:15)There is no death worse than that of cancer. It just eats at you until you are gone. Sometimes you are able to stop it, or slow it. But sometimes you are also able to cut it out. When you cut it out, you don’t have it anymore. Now you might have the propensity towards having cancer, but that particular cancer is gone and will not bother you anymore.
Of course, the problem is, now that you have gotten the cancer, you tend to get it again. Your body has whatever it is that manufactures the cancer still in its bloodstream and you have to be vigilant, checking frequently to make sure it doesn’t come back.
It is the same with bitterness in your heart. That is what the writer of Hebrews calls a poisonous root of bitterness. That root of bitterness gets into your heart and begins to eat away at you. Everything you do, everything you think is consumed with whatever caused that root of bitterness.
Maybe you got angry at someone and it never got resolved. You have to see them everyday, but you are still angry. Maybe someone did something bad to you and doesn’t seem to care that it hurt you and your family. It doesn’t bother them, but it surely bothers you. And it eats at you.
Maybe it was something beyond your control. This past election has been a major disappointment to many who felt their side to be the right one. it has brought a sense of sadness and despair that keeps on growing. And the problem is, if you feel that way, and you watch the news, the winner of the election is on every newscast. And he even gloats over his victory.
If you think about it enough, that root of bitterness comes into your heart. And one thing that root will not do is let you live happily. It gives you sadness, despair, all the things that you do not want to live with. And it seems that it will never go away, especially since it will be four years until the next election.
And that is if it changes then.
So what do you do? Jesus said in Matthew 5:29-30: So if your eye—even your good eye—causes you to lust, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your hand—even your stronger hand—causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. It is better to live without what you have that is bad than it is to be destroyed by it. And sometimes that requires major surgery on your life, getting rid of things that hurt you.
Sometimes you have to let things go. There is nothing you can do about the election. Sometimes there is nothing you can do about what someone has done to you, or how they treated you. You have to let it go.
If you don’t, it will eat you up like a cancer and you will die a bitter person. And that is tragic.
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