If your feeling bitter, God wants to make you better.

Exodus 15:22-27

 Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. ²³ When they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter; therefore it was named Marah. ²⁴ So the people grumbled at Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” ²⁵ Then he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree; and he threw it into the waters, and the waters became sweet.

There He made for them a statute and regulation, and there He tested them. ²⁶ And He said, “If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the Lord, am your healer.”

In the context of this passage the nation of Israel had just experienced God's miraculous deliverence. He had just brought them safely through the Red Sea on dry ground and destroyed the army of Egypt by bringing the waters of the sea over them. The Israelites had been in captivity for 400 years so along with deliverence they also needed to change their way of thinking. They needed to learn how to be free. In much the same way when we are freed from something that has bound us we need to learn how to walk in our freedom. Paul talks about this process of changing and learning in Romans 12:2

And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Walking in the perfect will of God requires that we think differently than the world. Let's return to the text in Exodus to see what is there for us today.

Remember the Israelite people had just experienced God's miraculous deliverence. They had lived through God's protection from the plagues against the Egyptians. Yet when they came to their next need they didn't seek God's provision, they resorted to their familiar pattern of grumbling. Again the Israelites had been in captivity for 400 years. They had been oppressed and abused. During that time complaining and grumbling had become very much a part of their identity.That is not a judgment on them it is a fact. They had a lot to be bitter about, but God wanted to change them.  Moses cried out to God and God showed him a tree. Moses throws the tree into the water and it becomes sweet .

That tree with it's ability to transform from bitter to sweet, was the symbol of another tree that would forever renew and restore all things to God's will, the cross of Christ.  Moses by applying that tree to the bitter waters of Marah, transformed the bitterness to provide sweet drinking water for the nation of Israel. In the same way Jesus through the cross transforms the bitterness of our lives into sweetness. When Jesus had an encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well He told her this in John 4:10

¹⁰ Jesus answered and said to her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, ‘Give Me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.”

Jesus is the living water, through His finished work on the cross the bitterness of life can be renewed and restored. We must though place the tree into the bitter waters and allow the cross of Christ to change both the bitterness and ourselves.

I believe there is still another benefit to be found in the process of allowing God to transform all the bitterness in our lives. Let's look again at the end of the passage in Exodus.

There He made for them a statute and regulation, and there He tested them. ²⁶ And He said, “If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the Lord, am your healer.”

Medical science has acknowledged that there is a correlation between anger/bitterness and some diseases. I am not sure what the medical implications are but I know that bitterness held onto causes sickness to our soul and spirit.

He, God, said "if you will", this was a conditional promise of God to keep the people free from disease if they  did what was right and kept His statutes. Fortunately for us we no longer live under the law. Yet God is our healer. As we trust Him, casting all our cares our bitterness and burdens on Him at the cross, there is healing for body, soul and spirit.  

Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit. today I ackowledge the pool of bitter water that I have allowed in my life for far too long. This bitterness has weakened my body, soul and spirit. Today Lord Jesus I desire that Your cross would stir the bitter waters that have remained stagnant in my life. By the cross of Christ change me and make those bitter waters sweet. I release to You and Your transforming power all that I have held in bitterness from childhood hurts and throughout my life. Holy Spirit I depend on You to continue this work in me in the days to come, reminding me to apply the transforming power of the cross into every area of bitterness in my life. Thank You that we no longer live under the conditional covenant of the law, but You Jesus have fulfilled the law through the cross. Be my healer.