When Roots Turn Bitter - Martin Wiles

Watch out that no poisonous root of bitterness grows up to trouble you, corrupting many. Hebrews 12:15 NLT

The bloom was beautiful, but I knew the petals would soon wilt and die.

Roots are important. My wife loves cut flowers but often reminds me she’d rather I spend money on her for something that lasts. And cut flowers don’t. Placing them in water makes them last a few days, but the end is inevitable. They’ll eventually end up in the trash can. 

The only hope for most flowers is roots which are planted in soil, draw up nutrients, and give the plant stability. Without them, hope vanishes. And the roots must be healthy. Otherwise, the plant will still die.

One unhealthy root is bitterness, and the writer warns early Christians about letting it grow up in their midst. You would assume bitterness wouldn’t be found among Christians. After all, we have much to be thankful for. Forgiveness, salvation, God’s guidance, eternal life, Christian friends. But I’ve been in churches long enough to know believers aren’t immune to bitterness. It’s is a poisonous root with the capability of spreading. When it does, it kills all the reasons we have to rejoice.

Bitter roots grow from such things as trials, unpleasant circumstances, and the sour attitudes of others. Life can be tough, and when things don’t go our way for long enough, we can develop a bitter attitude, an attitude that touches everyone we associate with. Which, by the way, will be fewer people if our attitude continues. No one likes to hang around with bitter people.

Responding to difficult times with anger or bitterness is a choice. Just as no one can make me angry, no one can make me bitter. But it happens if I don’t monitor my attitude and remember my beliefs.

God is in control of every circumstance touching my life. He promises to work good from all things—even the ones that try my soul. I can let the trials make me better rather than bitter. When others see me facing them with optimism, prayer, and trust, they will be drawn to the One who gives me the strength to do so. Facing them in such a way opens up a path to conversations that might lead to others’ salvation.

Most flowers give off a beautiful fragrance. You can too when you respond to life’s circumstances with trust rather than bitterness. 

When life gets bitter, remember who’s in control.

Prayer: Father, help us ward off a bitter spirit that tends to grow when things don’t go our way. 

Tweetable: What roots do you need to get rid of?

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Turning Loose the Leaves - Martin Wiles

As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night. Genesis 8:22 NLT

The leaves fell, and I knew there were some things I needed to let fall as well.

During one autumn week, the wind blew and the leaves descended in droves from the trees. I watched maple trees filled with pulsating red leaves allow them to tumble to the ground.

As my feet trudged through the mounded leaves, I thought of the above verse. What God had promised was happening. But just as surely as the trees turned loose their leaves, I too had to free my life of things that have a habit of hanging on if I were going to enjoy God’s best.

Bitterness was one leaf I had to let fall. Reasons for bitterness—against others, God, or both—can be numerous. Perhaps the trials of life have gotten me down, and I begin to wonder whether or not there really is a God who cares. Maybe relationships or jobs have ended unexpectedly. When bitterness hangs on, life is miserable.

Unfair decisions are another leaf. These are made by others but affect me. The decision to end a job, a relationship, a contract, or even a life. I can’t control unfair decisions made by others. The feeling of being powerless leads to despair and can easily usher in hopelessness—and its bedfellow depression.

Past hurts can hang like unfallen autumn leaves. Life is filled with them. I can hurt others intentionally and unintentionally, and others can hurt me. Hurts…well, hurt. They put a damper on life. Wishing they could be undone only leads to further misery.

Unforgiveness is like the stubborn leaf that refuses to fall. Hurts must be forgiven, or bitterness and a life of misery will follow.

Physical pain is also an unwelcome leaf. Especially when doctors can’t find the cause, when medicine isn’t doing the trick, or when my prayers for God’s healing don’t bring relief.

While I may have no control over physical pain or other’s unfair decisions that hurt me, I can avoid the leaves of bitterness and unforgiveness. What’s in the past is in the past and should stay there. Reliving it or using it as an excuse for present unwise behavior keeps the leaf from falling where it can do what God designed it to do.

Let the unhealthy leaves fall from your life tree, and enjoy the life God gives you to live.

Prayer: Father, give us the power to let go of those things that keep us from the abundant life You offer.

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Refined by Sorrow - Martin Wiles

Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us. Ecclesiastes 7:3 NLT

Never had I witnessed sorrow bring such a transformation.

When times of deep sorrow strike, many choose the road of bitterness toward God. If God’s as good as you claim, why did…, they ask. And I’ve wondered the same thing when traveling roads of sorrow. Not James. I was his pastor, but he and his wife rarely attended church. Nor had I ever been to their home. Only through the grapevine did I know they had marital challenges.

Late one evening, I received a call about a wreck involving James’ wife and young son. She had swerved to avoid a deer, ran off the road, and crashed. She was banged up and in shock. Her infant son was dead.

Following the funeral and several days of intense grieving, James began attending church regularly. Actually, every time the doors opened. Soon he walked the aisle, rededicated his life to Christ, and requested baptism. He continued to grow spiritually, and within a year of the accident was serving as a deacon in the church. Sorrow had refined him.

What wise King Solomon says seems ludicrous. Who in their right mind would rather have sorrow than laughter? But his conclusion is accurate: sadness has a refining influence.

Periods of sorrow remind me I have little—if any, jurisdiction over most of what happens to me. Through hindsight, I see how I could have changed the course of some of my travels, but most of them were outside my control.

Knowing God has a determitive and permissive will helps. Some things will happen because He has determined they will while others occur because He permits them—even though they aren’t in His perfect plan. Understanding this requires faith and my admitting I can’t always understand God’s ways. They are higher than mine.

If I respond correctly, sorrow will refine my relationship with God by moving me closer to Him. Knowledge that He’s in control will replace worry and anxiety. I’ll plunge deeply into His Word and run to Him through prayer. Sorrow can also produce a greater level of perseverance and patience. After all, I have a hope unbelievers don’t.

Don’t let the sorrow that comes from living in a sinful world depress you. 

God loves you and is in control of your life events. If you let Him, He will refine you through sorrow.

Prayer: Father, when times of sorrow encroach upon our lives, help us trust You to use them as refining tools which will enable us to grow spiritually. 

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Throwback Tuesday - Martin Wiles

Watching the Tongue

He was a prior police officer and a current fellow pastor and good friend, but idle tongues cost him his present position and almost ruined his reputation.

I pastored on one end of town and he on the other. Riding past his church one day, I observed an adage on the marquee denigrating gossip. A red flag shot up. My friend was counseling a woman with marital trouble, and some in the church assumed the worse. Talk continued in spite of his discretion, and he soon felt it best to resign. Fortunately, he had another career to fall back on, but the church suffered needlessly-and so did his reputation. Read more...

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Throwback Tuesday - Martin Wiles

Identifying With Christ

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in The Cost of Discipleship, said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” And he did.

Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor and theologian who resisted Nazi dictatorship, opposed Hitler’s euthanasia program and his persecution of the Jewish people, and even joined the German Military Intelligence Office in their plans to assassinate Hitler. The Gestapo arrested him in April of 1943 and hung him two years later, just 23 days before Hitler surrendered. Bonhoeffer stood for his faith, suffered for his faith, and ultimately died for his faith. Read more...

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Never Forsaken - Martin Wiles

My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me? Why do you remain so distant? Why do you ignore my cries for help? Psalm 22:1 NLT

I had a few chickens and a couple of ducks, why not add a goat?

The call came from a church member: “I have a goat whose mother won’t nurse her. Would you like to have her?

“Sure, why not,” I said. I’d bottle fed a pig some years earlier. Why not try a goat.

We made her a bed in our utility shed. My schedule was flexible—unlike the rest of the family, so feeding her fell to me: morning, noon, evening, before bed, and once in the middle of the night. When she was weaned, I placed her in the pen with the chickens and ducks. She was more of a pet than a farm animal. Gracie discovered being forsaken by her mom didn’t mean everyone would forsake her.

Why the psalmist felt forsaken and penned this psalm, I’m not sure. But Jesus used the same words while hanging on the cross dying for the sins of humanity. He said it because He was bearing the full weight of the world’s sins. Being the holy God that He is, His heavenly Father had to turn away in that moment. How the Divine could turn from the Divine is unexplainable, but it was only momentary. When the deed was done, God accepted what His Son had accomplished, raised Him from a grave, and received Him back into heaven. 

I’ve felt the pains of being forsaken by others: peers who thought I was different and didn’t want anything to do with me, work associates who thought I attended to my responsibilities too intricately, church members who didn’t like the changes I suggested, and others who were turned off by my faith stand. 

Being forsaken happens in life. Though others forsake us for various reasons, God will only do so for one reason: unbelief. Even then, He continues to prick our consciences with His Spirit, desiring that we repent of our sins and trust Him. As His child, He’ll never turn His back on us. Even when we’re unfaithful to Him, He’ll be faithful to us. He made the promise that He’ll never leave or forsake us. And we can depend on His word. 

Gracie may have felt forsaken, but she wasn’t. We may feel God has turned His back on us, but He never does. 

Prayer: Father, we thank You that we can always be sure You are by our side.

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Throwback Tuesday - Martin Wiles

The Power of Encouragement

"God isn’t through with you yet,” he calmly muttered. “He has something else in store.”

My friend’s statement was mounted on top of three years of discouragement and disappointment that were quickly converting into depression. I knew what God wanted me to do-and I had been doing it, but someone else’s distasteful decision had put me where I presently was. I craved obedience to God’s call, but no one was currently calling me to do it. I was thankful for my friend and others like him who flung encouraging words my way during this dry spell in my life’s journey. Had it not been for the encouragement, I may have surrendered to the devastating effects of depression. Read more...

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Throwback Tuesday - Martin Wiles

Uniquely Constructed Treasure

Alfred ambled along the beaches of Curacao Island and was distressed by the numerous bottles littering the beach and the meager living conditions of the island’s lower class. With no economic means to return them from whence they came, the island’s inhabitants allowed the bottles to rest where they were tossed.  

Alfred’s distress led to action. He asked a Dutch architect to design “a brick that holds beer,” and the Heineken WOBO (World Bottle) was born. Bottles were laid horizontally and interlocked, then secured by mortar and a silicon additive. Around 1,000 bottles were required to build a 10 ft. by 10 ft. shack. Only two of the structures still exist, and they are located on the Heineken estate in Noordwijk near Amsterdam. But Alfred’s dream brought treasure from trash. Read more...

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Flashback Friday - Martin Wiles

Peace in Life’s Storms

I lay in my tent caressed by darkness’ fingers, listening and shivering as the rain pelted my canvas covering. Thunder pounded against the darkened mountains and rolled through the valley while lightning and wind raged against the sky. Sleep escaped me, and fear crept through my tent flap as I cringed behind my only shield: a vinyl wall. 

I’ve slept through numerous storms but been awakened by many more. Nighttime storms petrify me. I’d rather see the ominous clouds, pealing lightning, and fuming winds. Not that seeing will eliminate the effects, but in some strange way it’s more comforting to observe what can eradicate my possessions or steal my life. Read more...

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