The first man was created complete and placed in God’s perfectly designed world. God created man to experience fulfillment in a quality relationship with Him, aware of his value and purpose, active and creative with power, with an eternal spirit. We were made to be both physically alive and spiritually alive. God created humanity with all that was needed to be completely content. With disobedience came a fracture in our God-image. Now there was a problem. We still have God’s image, but its expression and experience have become severely distorted.
God has been and forever will be, humanity, on the other hand, is confined by time. Our only experience involves time. We have a birth date; we have a death date; we are defined and restricted by time. It is almost too much for our little brains to grasp the concept of eternity.
Are you exhausted and worn out? Has your life turned out differently than you expected? Have you run out of answers? Do you feel isolated? Has life lost its meaning? Are you confused? The chances are if you think this way, you are spiritually empty.
Our eventual death is an issue faced by all human beings. For many, the subconscious anxiety caused by a fear of death is behind a lot of their daily anguish. This burden affects us all; we are all going to die.
With the first breath from God, a man received a portion of God’s creativity and power. Humanity is not content being passive. Our God-given nature is to be creative as we interact with the rest of God’s creation
Our life is filled with daily choices – too numerous to count. We choose a path, and the path leads to a result. The result is the consequence of the decision we have made. It is our choice – select the road leading to life or the road leading to death. The decision is your responsibility.
What is the meaning of life? Why am I here? What is the purpose of my existence? We all struggle with the burden of meaninglessness. The struggle with meaning is a cry about our perceived value. The battle to find meaning is the battle to find worth.
Hour after hour, day after day, we work our fingers to the bone to feed our hunger. A hunger that never seems to be satisfied. We end up exhausted and unfulfilled. We struggle to find meaning in who we are and what we do. We strive to find meaning, and in the process, lose contact with our value.
God’s completed creation was “very good.” Isolation is a heavy weight, and God did not create humans with the intent of carrying that weight. The experience of separation from God and our fellow man was not part of God's creation plan for humans.
Do you feel like you are living in a shadow and lack substance? Do you think no one cares about you? So, what is this burden of isolation? How do we recognize it? How do we accept it, and how do we live, so we are not consumed by it?
Life is hard, confusing, troubling, and at times, feels impossible. We all struggle with the burden and pain of isolation, meaninglessness, responsibility, mortality, and spiritual emptiness. Our goal during these times of difficulty is not complacency or comfort; our goal is contentment.
We have this overbearing weight in our chest, that communicates that something fundamental is not right. This weight has the power to hobble us and prevent personal growth. This weight is experienced as intense boredom, the awful pain of loss or failure, the tension of irresolvable conflict, the anguish of inadequacy, the oppressive darkness of aloneness, the despair of hopelessness, the restlessness of meaninglessness, and the angst of perpetual uncertainty. The source of this angst is the existential burdens.
We are all enticed by the same temptation, especially at times of discomfort. The temptation is to turn our backs on God and pursue self-attainable comfort. Unfortunately, contentment pursued is never satisfied; it results in intensified efforts to achieve satisfaction at any cost.
We live in an age of abundance. We have a wealth of food, distractions, entertainment, possessions, and an overabundance of information. We have all we could need, but we still want more. With all we have, you would think we would also have an abundance of contentment. Instead, we have a wealth of discontentment. It does not matter if you have a lot or have just enough to survive; we all struggle with the same significant issues.
I almost drowned in a sea of bitterness, but for the grace of God!
We live in a world awash with bitterness and misery. How do we survive? How do we keep it together? How do we protect ourselves against bitterness?
Are you living in misery? Are you exhausted and worn out? Has your life turned out differently than expected? Have you run out of answers? Do you feel isolated? Has life lost its meaning? Are you confused? If you think this way, you are spiritually empty.
The power behind all of the roots of bitterness is greed and emptiness. Greed is the passionate pursuit of more, just for the sake of having more. It is an insatiable longing that cannot be satisfied. It is a loud, demanding hunger. A hunger that does not go away.
In this category of bitterness, there is no subtleness. These roots of bitterness are seen by all to be expressions of active bitterness.
The Not-So-Subtle Roots of Bitterness are more evident than the subtle roots, but they are still subtle in their presentation. With this category of roots, you can start to taste the bitterness.