When Eating The Gruel Of Bitterness

Task masters suppress and have full intention of destroying hopes and promises. During a particularly trying time in my life I had an opportunity, at his invitation, to spend some time with a minister I had known for a number of years.

We were sitting across from one another in a booth at a restaurant. At one point that evening, he was physically repulsed by my conversation and he actually got as far back in the corner of his side of the booth as he possibly could. Later that night that disturbing scene replayed itself in my memory.

As I wondered about the cause, I began recalling my words and my tone of voice. Because of certain situations I had faced in the past with persons he and I both knew, emotions which were marinated for months in bitterness dominated my portion of the discussion. It was then that I realized I had become a victim of the task master called Bitterness.

I had not eaten at the Master’s table in so long that my spiritual and emotional belly was growling painfully with the acidic gruel that Bitterness had been feeding me. That pain was eventually expressed in the form of acidic verbiage which stung and repulsed others.

If you submit to them, task masters feed you a spiritually malnourished diet that will keep you subdued while they do your planning for you. They preempt any goals or plans you had for yourself.

(This is the sixth excerpt in a series from Marty Gabler’s book “Why Sheep Have Short Legs,”  Chapter Two.)