Years ago, there was a terrible outbreak of disease in a tiny village in a remote part of Africa. Both children and adults were getting sick with nausea. Several weeks passed, and the sickness became widespread, and people started dying. Word of the disease reached the main city in that area, and experts were dispatched to try to figure out what was causing the problem. They soon discovered the water was contaminated. The village was getting its water supply from a mountain stream that was fed from a spring, so the experts decided to trek upstream and hopefully find the source of pollution. They traveled for days and finally came to the mouth of the stream. But on the surface they found nothing wrong. Puzzled they decided to send some divers down to search as closely to the spring's opening as possible.
What they found shocked the experts. A large mother pig and her baby piglets were wedged right at the opening of the spring. Evidently they had fallen in, drowned and somehow got stuck there. Now all that crystal-clear, pure mountain springwater was being contaminated as it flowed past the decomposing remains of the dead pigs. In no time after the divers were able to remove the dead pigs, the water begin to flow clean and pure again.
In our lives, something similar takes place. We all have negative things happened to us. Maybe last week, last month, or ten to twenty years ago somebody hurt us. Too often instead of lettings it go and giving it to God, we’ve held on to it. We haven't forgiven, and just as those pigs soured that crystal-clear water, our own lives have become contaminated. The Root of bitterness has taken hold.
Worse yet, after a while, we accept it. We make room in our hearts for that bitterness; we learn to live with it. "Well, I am just an angry person. That’s just my personality. I am always like this. I'm always bitter. This is who I am".
No, with all due respect, that’s not who you are. You need to get rid of the poison that is polluting your life. You were made to be a crystal-clear stream. God created you in His image. He wants you to be happy, healthy, and whole. God wants you to enjoy life to the full, not to live with bitterness and resentment, polluted and putrefied yourself and contaminating everyone else with whom you have influenced.
Imagine yourself as a crystal-clear stream. It doesn’t matter how polluted the stream may be right now, or how muddy or murky the water may look in your life today. If you’ll begin to forgive the people who have offended you, and release all those hurts and pains, that bitterness will leave and you’ll begin to see that crystal-clear water once again. You’ll begin to experience the joy, peace, and freedom God intended you to have.
~ Joel Osteen
