The Cycle of Bitterness
Grief comes from loss. The full cycle produces hope in believers.
The cycle of bitterness begins with false expectation. We never get what we expect when it is a false expectation. That loss cycle continues. We grieve the loss of something that was never ours in the first place.
We do not cycle through grief properly. We develop bitter roots against God, ourselves, and others. These roots spring up as living shoots. They distribute deadly poison. They trouble many other people. (See Hebrew 12.)
Esau
The Bible charges spiritual fathers about Esau. We are to limit the trouble produced by Esau bitterness.
We produce strength of will in inheritors. Those that endure are authentic children. Those that quit have no inheritance. They endure discipline. This process prepares and positions them for inheritance. If they do not quit, they are authentic. We strengthen them when and where they lack strength so they develop strength of will. If they submit, they endure. If they quit, they disqualify themselves from inheritance.
The disqualified develop an Esau spirit. They continue to grieve their false expectations. They trouble others with their poison. They attempt to attack the authentic inheritors with false claims.
Fathering leaders must identify this poison. They must cleanse it from the oikos of God. The oikos of God is a spiritual eco-system, or matrix. If fathering leaders allow Esau poison into the matrix, many suffer. They develop irrational, irreconcilable grief over nothing. They invest emotional energy in reliving painful past experiences. If the oikos is poisoned, people continue to discuss history as if the pain of yesterday is real today. They remain wounded.
They demand justice. They demand fairness. They speak with poison, and poison those who receive their words. They become paranoid. They see an attack in FB posts where no attack arrives. They become defensive. They defend the false expectations about which they cannot stop grieving. They have heart burn.
Fathering leaders protect the oikos from this poison. There is no inheritance for those who quit the process of preparation. So, fathers will always have to protect the inheritance from Esau. There is no place for the voice of Esau. This is part of the preparation process for authentic inheritors. Submission to your fathering includes closing the ears of inheritors to Esau poison.
Stop It!
Most ministries have Esau voices. Most leaders they refuse to silence these voices. They think it is fair to coddle Esau. He has proven to be less than authentic. They still treat him like an inheritor. Fathers must speak this truth aloud in a way that makes it clear to all that Esau has no valid voice.
Esau wants his inheritance without preparation, without submission, without positioning. He feels entitled. He festers with false equality. He harbors false expectations. He wants God’s stuff so he can do whatever he pleases with it.
Church-anity is best defined by this: people who want God’s stuff so they can do whatever they please with it.
Church is all about what people want. It leaves nearly nothing for what God wants. The moment church becomes something other than “what can church do for me?” Esau people are “out of here.”
What they say then is the very poison fathering leaders must keep out of the eco-system.
There is lot of dysfunction in spiritual fathering. The real problem is lack of submission. God didn’t promise anyone perfect fathers. Submission cannot be defined by a limited to response by children upon the basis of their own definition of “what is appropriate.” Nor is abuse defined by a child’s notions: “I didn’t agree with that.”
We are investing billions in Esau while he spews poison back into God’s eco-system. We lack of strength of will to deal with Esau. This reveals how little strength of will we have to invest in authentic children. The full circle of our dysfunction is thus defined.
