When You Notice You've Been Becoming Bitter

When You Notice You've Been Becoming Bitter

Bitterness rarely arrives as one big decision; it sets in slowly after a hurt you never processed, until you've become more closed off without choosing to. This episode looks at how to recognize that drift and clear it out the way Paul urged in Ephesians 4:31, before it runs your life. Bitterness is sneakier than most people expect. It rarely arrives as one big decision to resent someone. It comes on slowly, out of a disappointment you couldn't process or a relationship that ended without the apology you were owed. You keep turning it over, and over time, without deciding to, you become a slightly different person: quicker to assume the worst about people, quicker to expect to be let down. One day you notice you've grown more closed off than you were, and you can't quite name when it happened. Greg McLogan knew that place from the inside. When his marriage ended in 2007 with a betrayal, he did what a lot of us would do. He replayed it, nursed the anger, and went back over the ways he'd been wronged until the hurt turned into something worse. The bitterness pulled him into a depression he never saw coming. From there he faced a choice, and he chose to get better instead of staying bitter. It started with admitting he'd become an angry, bitter man, taking the whole thing to God, and confessing the resentment he'd been feeding. Then came the part that took courage: he looked squarely at his own role in how the marriage came apart, rather than aiming the entire story at the person who hurt him. Today he helps other people find their footing after divorce. Paul was direct about this. In Ephesians 4:31 he wrote, "Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, harsh words, and slander, as well as all types of evil behavior." Notice the verb: get rid of. Paul treats bitterness as something you have to clear out on purpose, like rot in a wall before it spreads, because it won't leave on its own. Left alone, it grows and feeds on whatever you keep rehearsing. Every time you replay how you were wronged, you water it. Here is where the hope is. Bitterness is one of the few sins that mostly punishes the person holding it. The people who hurt you may not think about you at all, while you lose sleep and lose joy over what they did. Clearing it out is how you take your own life back. The way back has two moves: name it, dropping the softer words and admitting it's bitterness, and then take it to God, confessing your own part and releasing the whole thing to Him for the slow healing only He can give. In this episode, Bart shares his own experience of becoming bitter toward church leaders who treated him badly at a previous church, and how naming it, confessing his part, and releasing it to God let the bitterness slowly lift. Healing is God's work, and He doesn't refuse the people who bring it to Him. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * Why bitterness sets in slowly, without any single decision to resent someone * What Paul's command in Ephesians 4:31 reveals about clearing it out * Two steps for handing a long-held hurt to God and getting your joy back Bitterness comes on slowly, and it clears out the same way: one deliberate step of naming it and handing it to God. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/275 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/275] Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail] Want to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast. https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/] Rate and Review https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/] Connect with Bart Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusyliveshttps://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives [https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives] Website: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com] Feeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1here: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe].

What to Do When You've Realized You Hurt Someone

There's a brief window between realizing you hurt someone and deciding what to do about it, and the pull is almost always to explain or defend rather than repair. This episode looks at why Jesus placed reconciliation ahead of worship, and why quick repair costs you far less than repair delayed. There's a moment most of us would rather skip past. A conversation ends, a friend walks off, and it hits you that what you said landed harder than you meant it to. Two roads open up. One is to go and make it right. The other is to start building your case: to explain what you really meant, to defend why you said it, to decide the other person was too sensitive anyway. That second road is easier in the moment, and it's the one most of us take. But there's a short window between realizing you caused harm and choosing what to do about it, and what you do there matters more than you think. Jesus set the bar high. In Matthew 5:23-24 He pictures you at the altar, in the middle of worship, about to present your offering, when you remember that someone has something against you. His instruction is to leave your gift right there, go be reconciled to that person, and then come back and worship. Notice the direction. He isn't describing a grudge you're holding. He's describing a grudge someone might hold against you, something you did. And He says repair comes first, even ahead of worship. That's how seriously God takes a wound you caused. The urgency is practical. Repair done quickly costs you something small: a little pride, an awkward phone call, five minutes of feeling exposed. Repair delayed costs you more. The hurt hardens, the other person builds their own case about who you are, and what could have been mended in a day becomes a wall that takes years to come down. The goal is repair, not self-punishment. You're not groveling. You're closing the gap before it widens. A striking example comes from a church that had split decades earlier, when about a hundred people walked out of St. Andrews Presbyterian for less than noble reasons. Half a century later, the breakaway church's pastor was researching his own congregation's history and found the pettiness at its root, and a group of people who had been hurt and never apologized to. Not one person in his church had been there when it happened. Even so, he wrote St. Andrews a letter, thanking them for giving his church life and apologizing for the ungracious way it began, and his congregation backed the words with gifts right before Holy Week. They went and made right something they hadn't even broken. In this episode, Bart is candid about how often he has spoken or acted without thinking and hurt someone, and how he has learned to go and take full responsibility the moment he realizes it, often after his wife Katharine, with her gift of mercy, points out what he missed. The challenge is simple and direct: think of one person you know you hurt, drop the defense, and close the gap while it's still small enough to close. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * Why the moment right after you cause harm is so easy to mishandle * What Matthew 5:23-24 reveals about how God ranks repair and worship * Why a quick apology costs far less than a delayed one There's a short window between realizing you hurt someone and deciding what to do about it. The quickest repair is almost always the cheapest one. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/274 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/274] Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail] Want to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast. https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/] Rate and Review https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/] Connect with Bart Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusyliveshttps://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives [https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives] Website: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com] Feeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1here: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe].

How to Keep Praying for Something That Seems Impossible

When you've prayed the same prayer for years and nothing has moved, it's tempting to wonder if your prayers are even reaching God. This episode looks at the parable of the persistent widow and why Jesus told it for exactly this moment: so you would keep praying and never give up. When you've prayed for the same thing for years and nothing has moved, discouragement sets in. The marriage that's falling apart still hasn't healed. The child still hasn't come home. After enough time, you start to wonder whether your prayers are doing anything at all, whether they're bouncing off the ceiling, or whether you're just talking to yourself. Most people who've prayed a long time have stood right there. Jim Cymbala knew that place. As pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, a church famous for its prayer meetings, he lived with a grief at home he couldn't fix. His daughter Chrissy had walked away, ended up far from home, and for a long stretch he and his wife Carol didn't even know where she was. So they prayed, Sunday after Sunday and year after year, with nothing changing, until one Tuesday night when someone handed Jim a note that read, "Tonight is Chrissy's night." More than a thousand people cried out for her at once. That same night, miles away, something broke open in Chrissy, and a few days later she walked back through her parents' door. Today she and her husband pastor a church of their own. Jesus told a story for exactly this kind of waiting. In Luke 18, He describes a widow with no power who keeps going back to a corrupt judge, asking again and again for justice, until he finally grants it just to be rid of her. Luke tells us why Jesus told it: so that His followers "should always pray and never give up." Then Jesus makes His point with a contrast. If even a judge who fears no one and cares about no one will answer a person who refuses to quit, how much more will a loving Father answer the children who cry out to Him day and night. That's the encouragement here. Your Father is nothing like that reluctant judge, and your persistence isn't wearing Him down. The prayers you've prayed a hundred times are not bouncing off the ceiling. He hears every repetition, and He invites you to keep coming back with the same request. Persistence in prayer is simply taking God at His word that He welcomes you, again and again. In this episode, Bart shares from years of interceding for other people in situations that looked completely shut, marriages written off and diagnoses with no room for hope. He's watched many of those prayers answered in ways nobody saw coming, and he's still praying others, having seen too many turn to give up now. The challenge is simple: take the prayer you've almost abandoned and pray it again, the way the widow kept coming, trusting that the One who hears you is good. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * Why praying the same prayer for years can leave you feeling unheard * What the parable of the persistent widow reveals about God's character * A simple way to keep praying for the thing you've nearly given up on The prayer you've prayed a hundred times isn't bouncing off the ceiling. You're praying to a Father who welcomes you back and tells you to keep coming. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/273 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/273] Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail] Want to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast. https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/] Rate and Review https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/] Connect with Bart Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusyliveshttps://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives [https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives] Website: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com] Feeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1here: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe].

When Loneliness Has Become Your Normal

Some loneliness passes, but other loneliness sets in and stays until it becomes the climate you live in. This episode looks at how to bring that long-haul loneliness to God the way David did, and the practical steps that begin to move it. Some loneliness is temporary. You move to a new city, or the kids grow up and the house empties out, and for a stretch of months you don't have the people you used to have. But there is another kind that sets in and stays. The friendships you assumed you would have by now never quite formed. The marriage you are in feels more like two roommates sharing a calendar. You go through whole days where the longest conversation you have is with a cashier. You can be surrounded by people and still go unknown, and after enough time, you stop expecting it to be any different. When Vivek Murthy served as U.S. Surgeon General, he traveled the country expecting to hear about opioids and chronic illness. What he kept hearing instead was that people were lonely, even on campuses where thousands walked past each other every day. In 2023 he declared loneliness a public health epidemic, reporting that one in two American adults felt measurable loneliness, with a physical toll comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Then he admitted he knew it from the inside, having felt profoundly lonely himself and believed, with shame, that it was his fault. That is the thing about loneliness: it hides, convincing the person feeling it that they are the only one. Scripture refuses to tidy this up. In Psalm 25:16, David prayed, "Turn to me and have mercy, for I am alone and in deep distress." No silver lining, just a man telling God plainly that he was alone and asking God to turn toward him. And that prayer made it into Scripture. God did not edit it out for being too raw. When you pray your loneliness plainly, you are not failing at faith. You are praying to a God who turns toward the alone rather than away from them, and who sees you tonight no matter how long you have felt this way. Then there is the practical side, because you can pray and still need a next step. One move is small reconnection: send the text you have been meaning to send, or reply to the person who reached out a month ago. Loneliness whispers that everyone is fine without you, and one small action pushes back on that lie. The other move is service. When you are lonely, every instinct says to turn inward and wait to be sought out, and the way forward is to do the opposite. In this episode, Bart shares that his own loneliness, when he was younger, tended to arrive when he was already tired or low, and that it lifted when he stopped waiting and reached out to serve someone else. A numb, isolated stretch is real, but it is not the end of the story. You are seen by a God who turns toward you, and one small step toward others is never a step you take alone. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * Why long-haul loneliness can slowly become the climate you live in * How Psalm 25:16 gives you permission to pray loneliness plainly * Two practical moves that begin to push back on isolation You are seen by a God who turns toward you. Pray your loneliness plainly, take one small step toward others, and you will not take it alone. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/272 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/272] Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail] Want to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast. https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/] Rate and Review https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/] Connect with Bart Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusyliveshttps://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives [https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives] Website: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com] Feeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1here: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe].

What to Do When You've Lost Your Sense of Compassion

It's possible to care for a long time and slowly go numb, until you nod along to someone's pain and feel almost nothing. This episode looks at compassion fatigue and how the ability to feel for others gets refilled, the way it did for Jesus, who kept returning to the Father. You can care deeply for a long time and slowly go numb without realizing it. The news shows another tragedy and you barely register it. A friend tells you what they're walking through and you find yourself nodding without feeling much at all. There's a name for this. It's called compassion fatigue, sometimes the cost of caring, and it doesn't mean you've become a cold person. It means a warm one has been pouring out faster than they've been refilled. Esther Smith knows the pattern from the inside. As a Christian trauma counselor, she spends her days absorbing other people's worst moments, and she names plainly what years of that can do: the same heart that pulls you into caring can go numb, until you catch yourself feeling almost nothing. The strange part is who it tends to strike. It's often the most devoted ones, the people who pour themselves out for everyone else and never stop to be refilled. It isn't only a counselor's problem. A parent of a child who has struggled for years can reach it, and so can the friend who is always the strong one. Anyone who keeps giving can run empty. Jesus shows us where the refilling comes from. Matthew 9:36 says, "When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." That moment came in the middle of relentless ministry, the exact conditions that leave most of us with nothing left. Yet Jesus looked at one more crowd and was moved. The Gospels keep showing the reason: again and again, He slipped away to be alone with His Father. His compassion flowed out of those hours, and it kept flowing because He kept going back to the source. That is the encouragement here. Your compassion isn't gone for good. It hasn't been destroyed, only depleted, and depleted things can be filled again. You won't get it back by gritting your teeth and ordering yourself to care more. You refill it the way Jesus did, by getting alone with the Father and letting Him do for your heart what you can't do by force. Compassion is downstream of communion. When the river feels dry, you don't fix it at the riverbed. You go back up to the spring. In this episode, Bart speaks candidly about the numbness that set in after making more than a thousand death notifications in law enforcement, the point where the next one was just another call. What brought his compassion back was rest and reconnecting with his calling. A numb heart isn't a dead one. It's a depleted one, and the same Father who refilled Jesus is ready to refill you. BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER: * Why caring for a long time can leave even warm people feeling numb * What Matthew 9:36 reveals about where Jesus found compassion to spare * Why you refill compassion at its source rather than by trying harder to care A numb heart isn't a dead one. It's a depleted one, and compassion gets refilled the way it did for Jesus: by going back to the Father. Share This Episode: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/271 [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/271] Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemail] Want to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast. https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/] Rate and Review https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/ [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/] Connect with Bart Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusyliveshttps://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives [https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylives] Website: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com] Feeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus https://daily-devotions-for-busy-lives.kit.com/b33aa395d1here: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe [https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe].