Get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.
Ephesians 4:31, NIV
It was a beautiful Sunday morning I thought to myself as I popped into my kitchen before church and began mixing up some blueberry muffin batter. I was in my element as I pulled a carton of eggs from the fridge and opened it up. There were 6 white eggs and one brown egg remaining in the carton. I didn’t think twice about this-we were often gifted with brown eggs from friends and family. I probably had just consolidated the last of a carton of brown eggs in with the store bought eggs. Grabbing a white egg I cracked it into my measuring cup. Yay, no shells! I grabbed the brown egg and gently touched it to the edge of the measuring cup. There was a pop, like when you open those scary pop open biscuits, and the next thing I know a terrible stench is permeating the room and I’m looking down at my hand covered in yellow and black egg rot. Disgusting. So gross! Like extremely gross!! On further examination I realized that little egg hadn’t been brown at all. It was a white egg that must have had a slight crack in it and then had slowly started to rot from the inside out. First infecting all of the egg’s inside, then starting to eat away from the inside to the outside turning the outside from white to brown. On the surface it looked okay- for a brown egg! But as soon as a little tension was put on it, the egg broke. Not only broke but exploded!
It dawned on me that bitterness eats away at us in much the same manner. We think we are fine. We don’t notice that we wear a frown more and more often. That we snap at friends and family for little, or no reason. We stress about minor things that normally wouldn’t bother us at all. Then the wrong thing happens at the wrong time and we crack. Exploding and letting all that filth out for the world to see, infecting everything close to us.
How much better to give our hurt to God before it can fester into bitterness! We can serve others so much better when we are not preoccupied recounting every past hurt. Instead of spewing rot into the lives of others when pressed, we can deliver fresh goodness from a whole and healthy heart. I don’t want to be the egg that cracks under the slightest pressure, I want to be the one that can withstand being jostled about in life’s storms. And when the pressure does become too great and cracks appear and we are broke open, I want ooze of only goodness. Father, please fill us with Your goodness, so that when broken we show only You and Your graciousness.