Bitterness

Growth in wisdom may be exactly measured by decrease in bitterness. Friedrich Nietzsche

For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin. Acts 8:23

I recently experienced a couple of people who lashed out on me in complete bitterness of stuff that had nothing to do with me. They were upset about circumstances in their own lives and decided the best way to deal with it was to bitterly yell at me. The funny thing is at first I wasn't really upset about it. I could see their immaturity in the situation and could tell that they were the ones suffering, not me. Yet given time I grew increasingly frustrated at their stupidity. Why was I getting yelled at? Why were they so blind to their absolute bitterness and ugliness from the inside that they were exposing? But the million dollar question came down to what should I do in response to that? Honestly, I wanted to tell them to shove it and jump off a cliff. However, I realize that I was letting their bitter, emotional outpouring control me now as well as themselves. Why is it that we as people let bitterness just sit and stew inside of us? Why do we enjoy being miserable? Why do we enjoy dropping our crap on other people? Honestly, I am beginning to think that most of the sin we have in our lives comes from a form of bitterness wrapped up within us. So I want to take the "wisdom route" and decrease in bitterness, and yet I know that I am still very frustrated by what happened. I would say I should just confront them, but knowing them they'll be extremely defensive and nothing will come except another blow up. Do I still do it? Not sure, but this is what I am trying to figure out right now.