Bitter Roots
Blog written by Oceans Board member Danell Czarnecki
The Monday morning following the Discover Inner Healing Conference at Overflow Church in Fish Hoek, SA, Ken and I were stopped by a woman as we walked the streets and greeted with an exclamation of joy and gratitude to her Heavenly Father for bringing healing into her life at the conference two days before. She shared her encounter and said she literally felt the bitter root pulled out from within her. We praised God for this inner healing and rejoiced with her.
Hebrews 12:15 “See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”
Bitter roots are often planted when someone has been or feels they have been hurt, abused, abandoned, rejected, and so on…when we experience those deep kinds of trauma and do not deal with them, it is internalized, holds us hostage and robs us of our freedom in Christ. Over time, the root can grow, and the increasing infection allows the enemy a stronghold over us. It impacts the way we respond and interact with others, the way we see ourselves and ultimately the way we view God.
Inner healing is getting at the roots of our wounds/traumas; excising bitter roots; and since the deepest hurts are most often stored in our memories, inner healing focuses there. It is not the past events that are altered in inner healing; rather it is the reactions we have developed; the healing of the infections that have held us captive. We cannot change the past events we have endured, either by our own hand or at the hands of others, but God can change the way we allow them to impact us.
Because roots are covered underground, they are hidden; but God wants to reveal to us the root of our troubles. This is not to say your salvation is not secure or you are not an adopted heir of Christ. You can be saved spiritually speaking but not free. You can be saved following Jesus and guaranteed a place in heaven but still live a life trapped in mental and or emotional bondage where the enemy taunts and torments. The infection is like rats that keep returning to feed on the garbage (bitter roots); you can run the rats off but if you do not take out the garbage the rats will keep returning.
Matthew 10:26 “Fear them not: for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be made known.”
Jesus can command the “rats” to leave and then remove the “garbage” accumulated. Those bitter roots of our wounds need to be “surgically” removed to heal; and then allowed to scar. And just like Jesus’ scars tell a story of love and remind us we are not alone; so too will the wrestling with the dark times in our lives and the scars that remain be a testimony to His love, power, and glory!!
Galatians 6:17 “From now on let no one cause troubles for me, for I bear on my body the marks (scars) of Jesus.”
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