We’ve just endured one of the most contentious election seasons in modern American history. Yet, the challenge isn’t over with the election. Such a close election means that a substantial percentage of the population are bitter, even angry with the result. However, supporters of the winning candidate are also angry. Many are bitter about the number of Americans who cast their vote for President Trump. Some are proudly holding on to bitterness. As one Twitter user put it: “When the election is over…I will remember your hate.” So what is the danger of holding onto bitterness?
The Danger of Bitterness
At the end of WWI, a young German officer who had been temporarily blinded in the war, learned of Germany’s surrender. Years later he wrote down what he felt that night in November 1918:
In these nights hatred grew in me, hatred for those responsible for this deed…Miserable and degenerate criminals! The more I tried to achieve clarity the more the shame of indignation and disgrace burned my brow. What was all the pain in my eyes compared to this misery? In the days that followed, my own fate became known to me…I resolved to go into politics.[1]
That young officer was Adolph Hitler.
C.S. Lewis observed that the only way to guarantee we won’t be hurt is to give our heart to no one. To wrap it up carefully and avoid all entanglements. “But,” Lewis warns, “in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”[2]
To forgive is to make ourself vulnerable. It means not punishing our opponents as we think they deserve. To forgive isn’t to ignore wrong, it’s to entrust ourself to the one who will judge justly (1 Pet. 2:23). But forgiveness also reminds us of our need of forgiveness. Jesus taught us to pray, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” The order is significant. Realizing our need of forgiveness softens our hearts towards the wrongs of others. There is freedom in forgiving others and entrusting ourselves to God.
What does it look like to let go of bitterness?
After WWII, Corrie ten Boom spoke throughout Europe about the power of God’s forgiveness. Corrie had survived the horrors of the concentration camps, the repercussion of Hitler’s stewing hatred. She forgave freely, but she hadn’t faced her greatest test yet. It came after a talk she had given in Germany on God’s forgiveness.
That’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. This man had been a guard at Ravensbrück concentration camp where we were sent. It could not have been many seconds that he stood there, hand held out, but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do. For I had to do it–I knew that…Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality…Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. “Jesus, help me!” The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes. “I forgive you, brother!” I cried. “With all my heart!” I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then.[3]
Continue to discuss policies and politics. Disagree. Argue passionately even. But as we do, let’s not hold on to hate and bitterness, but forgive, as God in Christ forgave us.
[1] William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1960). 48.
[2] C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, Reissue edition (San Francisco: HarperOne, 2017).
[3] Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place, 35th Anniversary edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Chosen Books, 2006).
Mike McGregor
Mike McGregor (MDiv, Reformed Theological Seminary) is Director of College Ministry at First Baptist Church in Durham, N.C. You can follow him on Twitter at @m5mcgregor.
