Bitter Pill
Theme of the Week: Those Iffy Relationships
Mark Buchanan
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
 1 of 1
Key Bible Verse: Get rid of all bitterness … instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you Ephesians 4:31-32). Bonus Reading: 1 Peter 3:8-9
I had so fed my resentment toward another Christian that at times I hated him. One day while thinking bitter thoughts about him, I heard my son come in the basement, slam the door, go to his room, and start crying. I went to him and asked what was wrong. He'd been playing goalie in a game of road hockey with some school friends, he told me, and let in a rash of goals. His teammates started taunting him, telling him they'd stand a better chance with an empty net than with him in it, telling him to go home.
Furious, I started putting on my shoes to march down the road, call those boys to account, and give them a tongue-lashing. "Mark," God said, "where are you going?"
"To straighten this matter out, Lord. No one treats my son that way."
"You have a father's heart," God said.
"Yes!"
"You hate it when someone hurts one of your children."
"Yes!"
"I hate that too," God said. And I understood in the most visceral way that I couldn't claim to love God and hate my brother. If I love God, I'll love His children—all of them. Or else, break His heart.
—Mark Buchanan in Hidden in Plain Sight
My Response: A resentment I've harbored and need to release is …
Thought to Apply: Love is the medicine for the sickness of the world.—KARL MENNINGER (psychiatrist)
Adapted from Hidden in Plain Sight (W Publishing, 2007) by permission.
Copyright © 2007 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity magazine.
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Teach me, Lord, to respond to the people you thrust into my life in ways that mature me, honor You, and build Your kingdom.
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