10 Feb Bitterness in Marriage
The Color of Marriage Devotional
Today’s Devotion – BITTERNESS IN MARRIAGE
Bitterness in marriage might catch you off guard, which is why today’s devotion is all about helping you recognize and drive out this unwanted enemy of your marriage.
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of bitterness? Would it be bitterness in marriage? Could it be something that happened to you during your childhood? Maybe, the thought that you are thinking about concerning bitterness is about a piece of candy that you bit into that surprised you because the packaging never indicated that bitterness would be a factor. Whatever came to your mind, more than likely wasn’t pleasant or enjoyable to think about, unless you enjoy bitter experiences, which most people don’t.
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Bitterness is something that we all, for the most part, try to escape from as much as possible. It’s not sweet nor appetizing so, there is no attraction that draws us to the things that are bitter. Once we encounter bitterness for the first time, we usually don’t rush back to it because of our lack of desire for it. Since this is the case, why is bitterness in marriage such a thing? Why don’t we turn our backs on it as we do with the other things in life that are bitter. The answer to this question should be no surprise, seeing that we all can have bitterness in marriage every now and then.
When we are the ones who are bitter in our marriages, for whatever reason, bitterness is acceptable. Not only is it acceptable, but it also becomes justifiable and many times likeable to those of us who have carried this poison around in our hearts towards our spouse and marriage. This is the reason why we don’t turn our backs on bitterness in the same way we did when we encountered bitterness from the things that was thought of during the opening of today’s devotion.
Bitterness in marriage is who we are and when we become bitter over the incidences that has occurred in our marriages, bitterness becomes our friend and our close confidant. We begin to enjoy the bitterness and use it as a weapon to reprimand our spouses for the misdeeds they have done that incidentally brought about our bitterness in marriage. We believe our bitterness protects us and shows our spouse we’ve had enough, and we are not going to take anymore.
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Bitterness in marriage is just like the things in life that are bitter, it only affects the person on the receiving end because the object itself has already been infected by the nature of bitterness. When you become bitter in marriage you don’t even notice that you have become bitter until it’s too late. Bitterness has already overtaken you and the results are just as hazardous as the objects in real life that makes us want to repel them because of the awful affects that the bitterness brings to us. You may not notice, until it is brought to your attention, that your bitterness is rampaging through your marriage, and it shows in just about everything that you say and do. Do you want to remain bitter in your marriage, causing the reverse affect of what you really want to happen.
Bitterness in marriage blinds us to believe that our disruptive behavior will bring about a change in our spouse when they see how unpleasant our disposition is towards them. We think that our bitterness is saying to our spouse, “I love you, you did me wrong, I need you to change, and apologize for how awful you have treated me”. But in reality, unless God allows our spouse to see differently, our bitterness is saying to our spouse “I hate you, I don’t love you anymore, you are the worst thing that has ever happened to me, and that is the least that your spouse will pick up from how your bitterness is telling you to treat them.
In some cases, you might not even know that you are bitter, and contribute your consistent bickering and arguing back and forth as something else other than bitterness in marriage. Other examples of bitterness in marriage include, but are not limited to, not feeling connected to your spouse, having ill feelings toward your spouse, and not knowing why you have them, being less likely to want to be intimate mentally and sexually with your spouse, and sharing more time with other loved ones then you do with you spouse. If you recognize that you are bitter in your marriage it’s time to confess and forgive. Continuing to be bitter in marriage will not heal your marriage, consequently, it will slowly destroy your marriage like an unwatched pot of water on a hot stove. The heat will slowly evaporate all the water out of the pot, and then start to burn up the pot at a rapid pace until it gets noticed.
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What’s meant to help your marriage is now tearing your marriage apart. Conflict when handled wrongly will produce bad results, in which one of them is bitterness in marriage. To avoid this, resolve the conflicts of your marriage withing 24 to 48hrs, and as you get better at this close the window even more to the shortest span possible. If you are unable to do this, get help the very moment that you realize your conflicts are not being resolved in a healthy manner, which is what allows bitterness to creep in.
Key Marriage Scriptures for today’s devotion:
Proverbs 20:22, Mark 11:25, Romans 12:2, Ephesians 4:31-32, Colossians 3:13, & Hebrews 12:14-15
If, while reading today’s devotion you have discovered and acknowledged that you have bitterness in marriage, start with prayer and meditation, write down the things that God reveals to you that has caused you to become bitter in your marriage. Once you have done this, ask God to help you forgive your spouse and if necessary tell you spouse the things that they have done to cause you to become bitter towards them in your marriage. Apologize, forgive, and move forward to a healthy and holy marriage with God as the center and not bitterness and anger.
We are here to help, we offer online Christian Marriage Counseling that will help you and your spouse with with overcoming bitterness in marriage. We also would like to help you with understanding and living out God’s plan for marriage so that you can build a Christ centered marriage that you can enjoy.
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