Dear Family,

Today is Tuesday, April 26, 2022. This is Day 3 of Week 2. It is our 10th Day of Count to Pentecost.

After walking past the Red Sea for three days into the wilderness of Shur, the children of Israel had found no water. Finally, they arrived at a place they labeled “Marah” because of the acidic, bitter taste of the water they found there.

Israel had known bitterness. Back in Egypt, their lives had been full of bitterness, and they had cried out for deliverance from their bondage. So, God had set out to deliver them. And, to represent their bitterness, He instructed them to eat bitter herbs at the Passover.

There is quite a difference between going through bitter times and becoming bitter toward God or others. The story of what happened to Israel at Marah helps illustrate an important difference.

At Marah, the Israelites murmured. They chose to vent negative feelings rather than to be humble and thankful. They began to be bitter toward God and His leadership through Moses. Yes, the water there was bitter, but their attitudes were also beginning to be bitter. And, it was their choosing to neglect thankfulness while allowing a growing sense of loss that fertilized bitterness in many of the ancient Israelites whose “carcasses” eventually fell in the wilderness.

Hebrews 3:17 But with whom was he grieved forty years? Was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness?

The word bitter has many uses in the English language. It can refer to tastes of food and drink, as well as to physical and emotional experiences that people feel are harsh, sharp, disagreeable, or unpleasant. It is the emotional bitterness that is the most difficult to bear, and it can bring about strong animosity and expressions of severe grief, anguish, or disappointment. This kind of bitterness within people can often grow from even a very small root. And typically, that root is planted by some sense of loss. It may be generated from something real or imagined.

In the New Testament we find bitterness being placed alongside some very bad company, like wrath, cursing, envy, and strife (Romans 3:14, James 3:14). And, God warns us of its dangers.

Believers cannot allow even the smallest root of bitterness to exist. In addition to defiling many, bitterness can also cause a person to “fail of the grace of God.”

Ephesians 4:31 Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:
Hebrews 12:15 Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled

We need God’s antidotes to bitterness. God healed the bitter waters at Marah. He can heal any bitterness we may ever encounter. The answer is to completely trust and rely on God.

Ben Faulkner, Pastor
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