Hearing From God Each MorningSample

Bitterness Hinders Hearing

Bitterness toward God is a sure hindrance to hearing His voice. Any-time bitterness tries to take hold of you, refuse it. Many times, the devil tries to make us think we are the only ones having a hard time. I don't mean to sound unsympathetic, but no matter how bad our problems are, someone else always has a worse problem.

A woman worked for me whose husband walked out on her after thirty-nine years of marriage. He simply left her a note, and was gone. It was a tragedy for her! I was so proud of her when she came to me after a few weeks and said, "Joyce, please pray for me that I will not get mad at God. Satan is tempting me so severely to get mad at Him. I can't get mad at God. He's the only friend I have. I need Him!"

Bitterness was trying to take root in my friend's heart because her life had not turned out the way she wanted it to. When we get hurt, we must realize that every person has a free will and we can't control that free will - even through prayer. We can pray that God will speak to people who may hurt us; we can ask Him to lead them to do right instead of wrong, but the bottom line is that He must leave them to make their own choices. If someone makes a choice that hurts us, we shouldn't blame it on God and become bitter toward Him.

God's word for you today: If you get hurt, don't ever blame God. He is the best friend you have.

From the book Hearing from God Each Morning by Joyce Meyer. Copyright 2010 by Joyce Meyer. Published by FaithWords. All rights reserved.