Oh Lord please, I beseech you, guard my heart, and mind. Guard them from pondering ingratitude, betrayals, arrogant religious talk, and others self-righteousness lest I become what you loathe. For to ponder such can only lead to dying from within as the root of bitterness’s fecundity produces growth that chokes the Word in my life and makes repentance seem so distant and hard, producing ungodly talk and self-defense.
Please dear Lord, let my thoughts be spent not upon such that leads to bitterness. Rather may my meditations hover in the rays of your grace and love, which leads to praising you and walking with you. May bitterness be overcome with blessing and anger with thanksgiving. May hurts from others be subdued by my contemplation upon your undeserved goodness to me each and every day.
I pray the very same for those whom I hurt through my own thoughtlessness and insensitivity. Grant them not to be tempted by my failures, but only by your grace drawn more closely to you.
“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice” (Ephesians 4:31).
“See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled” (Hebrews 12:15).
