Bitterness (Part II of II)
By Chris Voss
What was Paul’s specific response (and Silas’) to being beaten in Philippi with wooden whips and thrown into a stinking inner dungeon with their feet locked together? Acts 16:25, About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Instead of feeling sorry for themselves and being bitter, these two bleeding, suffering servants of God were praying and singing praises to God. Under such circumstances as they were in, their praying and singing amazed the other prisoners. Instead of being bitter, Paul and Silas had the grace to forgive, before they were even asked, and the holy courage to trust God when their very lives were endangered.
Would you, would I, react to these dreadful circumstances the way Paul and Silas did? Or would we be angry and bitter? Compare your situations and circumstances, and I will compare mine, to those of Paul and Silas in Philippi. I suspect yours, and I know mine, are insignificant compared to what Paul and Silas experienced.
Incredibly, yet powerfully witnessing to the other prisoners, they were praying and singing to God in a dingy dungeon at midnight after a brutal beating. All could see the amazing power of the Gospel in Paul and Silas.
In Elisabeth Elliot’s book, Path Through Suffering, she writes, “Corrie Ten Boom was a woman of strong faith and a radiant face. Why? Not because she had not suffered, but because she had and had responded to that suffering in a concentration camp during World War II, without bitterness and with complete trust in God.”
Elliot also writes, “One of the most soul-fortifying pictures I have of Corrie Ten Boom in my mind is of her getting up in the morning, standing in her solitary cell, and singing in a loud voice so that other prisoners could hear, ‘Stand up, stand up for Jesus!’ (page 44). No bitterness. None.”
Job said so many years ago, “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity (from God)? (Job 2:10). Job, Paul, Silas, and Corrie Ten Boom allowed God to rule completely over their lives. They never questioned God’s sovereignty or the circumstances of their lives.
God’s will in our lives may be something we do not like or want. But if we truly love the Lord, we will accept whatever happens in our lives without bitterness and walk even closer to our Savior!
Romans 14:7&8. For none of us lives to himself alone, and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
When your life belongs to the Lord, there is no room, no time, for bitterness.
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Chris Voss is a pastor at First Christian Church, 317 S. Main, Donna.