Side Effects of the Proud Heart: Bitterness and Resentment
Often times when we are hurt by the words or actions of others, our self-life is damaged and we are tempted to respond with bitterness. Bitterness is one of the symptoms among prideful people. Our Overcomers At-Home Program director Jordan Yoshimine helps us understand the connection between pride and bitterness. (From Episode #424 - Exposing the Pride that Tries to Protect our Inside World).
Host: Jordan in our last episode we looked at violent rage. Bitterness and resentment aren't as dramatic as that, for sure, but the results spiritually can be just as deadly. At first I'd guess that bitterness starts innocently in a way, and perhaps imperceptibly. But if left unchecked it comes out of us. People around us can just tell that we're bitter and were resentful. I know that you've struggled a lot with bitterness before coming to Pure Life, and you've helped to counsel other men in this sin. What are some of the commonalities that lead to bitterness and resentment in a person's heart?
Jordan: That's a good question. I think first and foremost if I were to really sit and think about counseling sessions that I've been in, and from my own personal experience, one of the most common threads you see in a person that's dealing with bitterness is that they've been sinned against in their past. That's sexual abuse for some, for others some form or abandonment, or other sinful actions. Usually if it's something sexual in nature it's someone close to them, such as a family member or a sibling or a relative. It's already traumatic as it is, whatever that sexual sin or abuse is, but then you have the dynamic of it being a family member or someone close to you that you trusted, so it exponentially increases the potential for a person to be bitter. I would also add unforgiving to that, because those two are linked together.
Host: What about personality types? Do you know if there are certain personality types that tend more toward bitterness?
Jordan: Yeah, definitely. I was thinking about this in preparing for the podcast. It's people who crave and idolize the affirmation a man. It's people who have what we call in counseling, "the fear of man." Bitterness can happen when they don't receive affirmation from people, when they look to a parent or teacher or coach or whoever that authority figure is. If they don't receive that affirmation from their authority figures they feel unloved. They feel rejected, and then a seed that Satan wants to plant is bitterness. So, it's injected in people who really are not very confident, who are insecure, who look to people to affirm them in whatever they're doing.
Host: Yes, so in a sense it's like that one sin—sin of idolizing the approval of men—then leads that other sin. It's interesting because what you're really talking about is that bitterness is coming up in a person's life to try to protect them from more hurt.
Jordan: To speak to that, I'd say that anyone familiar with the podcast or Pure Life Ministries is going to be familiar with the term "Spiral of Degradation." It's the same thing in a person who's dealing with bitterness. Let's say a person sinned against them, but instead of turning to the Lord they end up turning to self. I've heard that a person who's dealing with fear of man has walls that go up within them. And when they were a child they didn’t understand what was happening, so they would put up walls to protect themselves from getting hurt. But as they grow up and continue keeping those walls up, it also keeps the Lord out. So, when you keep the Lord out, what happens is that those seeds that got planted in youth start coming up and sprouting into fruit of bitterness, anger, rage, rebellion, and there's no room for anyone with in that, which includes the Lord. Then Satan has free reign, and he just waters that seeds more and more to keep them in that bitterness.
Host: Okay, so you talked about how bitterness and resentment are ways of protecting ourselves from being hurt again. What other things do you think bitterness and resentment are promising to give us?
Jordan: Well, I'm going to have to use a personal example. So I’ll talk about my relationship with my dad and my parents. My dad was a pastor, a very good pastor in fact. He had some really great gifts of visitation, of hospitality and of just reaching out to others. But this was at the expense of my two older brothers and I. I'm not blaming him now, but when I was growing up certainly that was an area that I felt abandoned. I would see my dad spending all this time with these families trying to witness to them, while I'd be wishing he was there to help me with my homework. So that really planted the seed of bitterness in me. Then when I became a teen that seed got watered, but instead of turning to the Lord, which I could have done because I was in church, Satan was able to water those seeds of bitterness.
The perceived benefit kept me in a desire for retribution and revenge. My thought process was "you hurt me, now I'm going to hurt you." In some instances, I would have a conversation either with my dad or with my parents, and I went off on them. I'd say "you do this, blah blah blah. What about me?" That bitterness, that self-protective pride, that desire for retribution just fed other sins in my life. I used guilt to get what I wanted from my parents, and of course, it would leave them feeling guilty. There was shame that was fed into as well, because I was Asian American. I would have an argument with them, and they would feel guilty, and then they would try to cover it up. I'd tell them that I wanted to go on a trip and that I needed a thousand dollars, so they'd give it to me! You can see that my bitterness led to manipulation. I'd say, "Yeah mom, I need a thousand dollars," but then I'd go spend it on sexual sin, or going out to drink or whatever. It was all just a lie!
I think a lot of times people who have been hurt want some sort of retribution. It's not even directed, perhaps, at the person who sinned against them. That was the reality of my relationship with my pastor. There was a perceived slight against me, so I was very critical of the pastor and undermined his authority. I got people on my side. It was that verse you used from Hebrews twelve fifteen, "the root of bitterness defiles many." It defiled many people in the church, and to my shame, some people left the church and now aren't in any church. My bitterness and letting that be expressed in the church setting had the perceived benefit that I was going to get back at my pastor. But now several people aren't even in church. I still deal with that, the pain of "did my sin have something to do with these people walking away from the Lord?" It's tough, very tough.
Host: You talked about it a little bit already that bitterness has something that it promises us, but it's not going to give us those things. Sin never delivers what it promises. Really what results from the sin is we begin to become distorted, corrupted, and twisted in ourselves. If a person listening is struggling with bitterness right now and they’re thinking, "that's me," can you talk about where that sin is going to take them if they don't repent?
Jordan: Sure. It's hard not to get emotional about it. What Satan wants to do for those of you who have bitterness and self-protective pride, who are putting their walls up to others, is isolate you. You don't want to be around people and you're afraid of getting hurt. You just don't want to get hurt. You're blame shifting. Number one, people don't want to be around people who are bitter. It's because they are negative and always oozing bitterness. So, the very thing that you crave, the affirmation of man, is not attained because bitterness is pushing people away. You may ask, "why don't people like being around me?" and "I'm trying to do everything I can to be liked." But when all you talk about when you're with others is how angry you are at someone, and you're blaming your parents or whoever, you end up being isolated and alone. People don't want to be around that. And in those instances when you feel like there's no way out and no one loves me, what do you think Satan is doing behind the scenes? He's putting these thoughts into your head and saying, "just kill yourself."
People who are bitter end up depressed and isolated. They often become so angry, as Chris Hurley talked about in his last segment on anger, that they go into these violent fits of rage. Then this can lead to domestic abuse and other dangerous behaviors. So, this isolation is just death. Loneliness is exactly where Satan wants to take you, to steal, kill and destroy those who are stuck in bitterness and isolation.
Host: I'll never forget talking with Dustin Renz in a show that we did a couple of months ago. He talked about how when he looked back on how he descended into sin, he could just see how the enemy was just holding this thing in front of him and saying, "just keep coming closer; just keep coming a little bit further; a little bit further, yeah I’ve got this thing for you." And he said you can lock on to that thing, that sin that Satan is promising you and you don't realize where you’re going. You don't realize how far you're descending into the perversion, the corruption, the anger, the bitterness, the envy. Sin is just breeding in your heart, and then you suddenly look up and say, "how did I get here?" It's because you were following the enemy down that path that he wanted you to go. Jordan, I want to ask you about hindrances to overcoming bitterness and resentment. Because we're going to talk about how to repent of pride in future segments, but what would you say are some things that keep a person from being set free from bitterness.
Jordan: Sure, I have four things written down in my notes. One is unforgiveness, a lack of forgiveness. You have to be able to forgive the people that have sinned against you. That's a very important thing. It means letting go of the bitterness. But it's also allowing the Lord to search your heart. You need to pray this kind of prayer, "Lord come in, I don't want these seeds of bitterness to continue in my life, I don't want that to grow. I don't want to affect other people negatively my life, so Lord Jesus will you search me?" That takes a lot for a person who's been in self-protective pride, whose lacked vulnerability. So, what prevents people from really growing in the Lord is that lack of forgiveness. Not allowing the Lord to search your heart, and not seeing your own sin of bitterness. We say, "this person sinned against me." But our response to their sin can also be sin. However, a lot of times people are blind to that. So, the right response to seeing other people’s sins is this: "Lord open my eyes to see my own sin in this."
Host: In upcoming episodes we're going to address the ways to overcome pride and the self-life. However, you've already touched on it Chris. Humbling ourselves is an important step, and that's going to be clear in future episodes where we’ll talk about how to live in freedom from pride. But to close out this interview I want to talk about one more thing. Are there things that would hinder a person from getting victory over rage and anger? I think if we could discuss a couple hindrances that would help the audience be ready to hear the positive steps toward victory.
Jordan: I think in the world of psychology today one of the common themes is the idea of self-esteem. As the church, it’s an issue if we’re looking to sources outside of God’s word, such as self-esteem, to build our lives upon. We tend to have a high view of ourselves in America for various reasons. A high self-esteem is often true of those who are very wealthy. And for those who have a great education and great knowledge among us; we tend to exalt ourselves over those things and we give less esteem to those we consider to be intelligent. Self-esteem has a huge role to play in hindering men from believing that they are the problem in their lives with their pride, with their anger and with their rage.
Another factor that hinders people from overcoming rage and anger is resistance to authority, whether it's spiritual authority or earthly authority. When men come to Pure Life they are put under the authority of a biblical counselor. For men who have never submitted to authority in their lives, and who have called themselves Christians, when they are sat down and their sins are confronted they respond in anger. In counseling we talk about the lives of these men and look at the fruit that has come out of them, and it gets them angry. You can see it in their demeanor when they sit back in the chair the counselor just spoke about something in their hearts and to them it’s a frontal attack on who they believe themselves to be. It takes a while for many men to finally sit down and say to me, “I’ve realized after reading the Bible that I am the problem.” And this takes a while, to break through that wall of self-defense that we all erect to protect ourselves.
