Guilt and innocence

Saved by the nose and antlers! Thanks to my husband’s fun December “décor” for our car (antlers on the windows, red nose on the front grill), we avoided a $124 fine for allegedly running a red light. When the ticket first came in the mail, we were aghast.  Neither of us could recall doing that, and the murky camera image printed on the citation wasn’t any help. Then I noticed I could go to a web site to view the official film by the traffic camera mounted above that intersection. That video showed the middle-lane car clearly running the red light. Our car (with its antlers) was legally stopped in the far right lane. Somehow, our license number was wrongly put on the citation—something I noted at the bottom of the form requesting a court appearance to dispute the ticket. I was ready to hold up the car antlers while the judge watched the video validating our innocence. I didn’t have to. A few weeks later, another note came from the court. This time it said, “File reviewed by judge.  Violation found not committed due to wrong license plate cited.  Case closed.”

A few weeks later, another “infraction” notice I questioned came in the mail.  For this I appealed to the Judge of all who warned about letting “bitter roots” take hold in our hearts (Hebrews 12:15). About fifteen years earlier, this person (then a teenager) took an innocent comment the wrong way and finally told me it still bugged them. I was unaware of this person’s negative reaction, and felt sad for how a grudge had rooted in this person’s heart. But I choose the Biblical response and wrote asking forgiveness. Soon after, I received from this person a four-page, single-spaced letter that I felt attacked my character. Seeing my tears as I began reading it, my husband said, “Let me read it.”  I replied, “If you do, you’ll think I’m a horrible person and wonder why you married me.” Reluctantly, I handed it over. He went through it, noting false and distorted statements. He pointed out words that served as clues to the writer’s own emotional state: angry, stressed, anxious, upset. “How should I respond?” I asked. “Don’t,” he said. “This could go on and on. Burn it.”

Before doing as he suggested, I read it several more times, trying to discern what message God had for me in the midst of its negatives.  I wanted the open heart of Psalm 139:23-24: “Search me, O God, and know my heart...See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

 For weeks afterwards, my Bible reading led me to many verses about forgiving and bearing with others’ weaknesses.  As if to reinforce that Biblical instruction, I happened to come across this quote from Phil Yancey’s excellent book Reaching for the Invisible God  (Zondervan, 200, p. 179):
Forgive, daily, those who caused the wounds that keep you from wholeness. Increasingly, I find that our wounds are the very things God uses in his service.  By harboring blame for those who caused them, I stall the act of redemption that can give the wounds worth and value, and ultimately healing.

I’m glad I never had to go to court with our comic Christmas car décor.  But every day “court is in session” as I seek to live as a citizen of heaven. I know this: that the Judge of all who sees into our hearts weighs all the evidence, and that He is absolutely fair and merciful.

Readers: has dealing with a "bitter root" been a part of your spiritual experience?

 

Return visitors

Last week I ended seven months of blogging about God-messages I sensed during September’s five-day vacation on one of the Hawaiian islands.  Of course, people have asked, “Are you planning a return trip?”  Not sure on that!  In the meantime, here are some true “return visitors.”  Welcome to my weedy back yard! There’s a hidden, five-feet-wide space between our house and the neighbor’s fence that annually produces a crop of dandelions.  Tall rhododendrons hide it from street view, but I know it’s there.  Every spring, when I fight scratchy rhododendron branches to rake their carpet of dead leaves, I also bring a bucket to hold the crop of dandelions I pull.

That they return every year reminds me how spiritual “weeding” is an ongoing process.  Without self-examination and confession, my life would sprout a thick patch of weeds, particularly those which Hebrews 12:15 describes:

See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.

I’ve been thinking a lot about that passage lately, probably because I was recently the target of someone’s "bitter root" toward me. Still hurting from that person's negative comments, I came to church this past Sunday never imagining the sermon would be so well tailored to my needs. The speaker spoke on his own experiences with “bitter roots,” depression and hatred, using scriptures that have become old friends from my own earlier painful lessons in this area.  I especially thought of two spiritual character lists the apostle Paul wrote to different churches:

Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.  Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. (Ephesians 4:31-32)

Rid yourself of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips....Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. (Colossians 3:8, 12)

There’s no cavalier, self-centered “you made me mad, therefore I don’t like you” in these verses. They reveal the gritty, difficult, humbling work of living as Christ would have us live.  For me, the closer I get to Christ, the more I realize I need His grace, day by day, in pulling the character weeds that need to go.

Lethal roots

I couldn’t believe how much root was attached to the morning glory weed I pulled from loose soil between some rose bushes. About two feet of root came up before it snapped off! As I dumped it into my weed bucket, I wondered if the writer of Hebrews had morning glory in mind when he wrote: “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many” (Heb. 12:14-15).

I once wondered why the verse said “a bitter root grows up” instead of a “bitter plant grows up.” Then I realized that the origins are in the root¸ and when it’s full of bitterness, so will be the result that shows. Bitterness is clearly forbidden for those who follow Christ: “Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice” (Eph. 4:31). Bitterness and its ugly cousins put the big Me, not God, in control:

“ME” was hurt by what my (fill in the blank--maybe spouse, brother, sister, parent, friend, boss, coworker) did to ME.

“ME” didn’t get what I thought God deserved to give “ME.”

“ME” lost something important to “ME.”

Brooding over what one considers unfair treatment can lead to three natural reactions, according to Dr. Charles Swindoll, writing in Hope Again (Word, 1996). One is an aggressive blaming of others that can that grow into revenge and rage. In that process, he wrote, it “nurtures a deep root of bitterness that tenaciously wraps around our hearts” (p. 83). The second reaction is a passive “I feel sorry for myself,” resulting in withdrawal and depression. Third is a “holding pattern” when we postpone or deny our feelings, even though those suppressed feelings will eat at us like an acid (p. 85).

Such negative feelings have been linked to significant health problems. One powerful example concerned a forty-something woman who experienced chronic stomach disorders and arthritis. She asked a pastor to pray for her, and in the midst of praying he sensed the Holy Spirit telling him she had a problem with unforgiveness, especially toward her sister. When he inquired about her relationship with her sister, she stiffened up and told of being unable to forgive her sister for a long-ago offense.

Drawing from Psalm 32:3, where David connected health issues to keeping silent about his sin (“my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long”), the pastor suggested her health problems could be related to her bitterness. When she relented and asked for advice, he counseled her to write her sister a letter of forgiveness, asking to renew their relationship. She did so, but delayed mailing it. In the meantime she became so ill she thought she might die. She dragged herself to her car and drove to a mailbox. “The moment she dropped off the letter she experienced some relief, and complete physical relief came when she arrived home.”(1)

One story of forgiveness I've never forgotten concerns Corrie ten Boom, survivor of Nazi atrocities, who spoke widely after the war. One time after her presentation she was greeted by a former prison camp guard she recognized as being especially cruel to her and her late sister. When this man said he’d become a Christian and extended his hand to Corrie, at first she resisted. Bitterness almost paralyzed her. Finally, appealing to the Holy Spirit, she let go of that old bitterness and found the strength to extend her hand in forgiveness and greeting.

Because it’s so much like a pesky morning glory vine, which travels on and on through the darkness of the soil, bitterness takes radical effort to root out. Yet God truly cares about our “spiritual weed control.” Trust me, I’ve had to get down on my knees for spiritual weeds, too, but the anguish was worth if for the freedom I felt later.

(1) From John Wimber, Power Healing (Harper & Row, 1987), retold in Klaus Issler, Living Into the Life of Jesus (IVP, 2012), p. 59.