Exodus 15:22 Then Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found no water. ²³ When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah.^[b] 24 And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?” ²⁵ And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log,^[c] and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.

The last ten years have been rough for my family. From diagnoses to death, accidents and incidents. The hits kept coming. I feel like everyone in the body of Christ goes through these seasons. What started out as bad, quickly snowballed into worse and then worse again and again and again. We all just kept trying to hold each other up. After years of hard times, it was more like trying to put up a tent with no poles. More like stringing plastic wrap between two trees for shelter. It felt like If we weren’t at a hospital, we were at a funeral. The times in life when you can’t even recover from the last thing before the next thing hits.

Emotional devastation can quickly lead to spiritual dryness. I try the best I can to just keep going. Keep it status quo. Most days I can put on a happy face, go to work, come home and be the wife and the mom. Keep praying and trying and giving. Keep serving.

I should have noticed sooner. I did wonder, what is wrong with me? That question played over and over in my head most days. Wasn’t I praying enough? Then I will pray more. Wasn’t I giving enough? Then I will give more. Try harder, do better, give more, be more, help more. But what do you do when you all of the help, doesn’t help? When all of the trying seems to add up to failure? The prayers and questions go unanswered? You dry up. Your soul dries up. You get parched. Paper mouth, cracked desert sand tongue, dried up. Do you know what happens after your soul gets that dried up? In my case, bitterness. Bitterness.

Bitterness seems to work like dehydration, you don’t feel it creeping up until it’s ready to take you down. That’s where I found myself. After years of asking the Lord to help, to intervene, to make straight the paths, I found myself questioning Him. Too scared to outright accuse Him but sinful enough to hold those hurts against Him. I’m sick of wondering what is the lesson here? I’m sick of lessons and growth and change. I’m horrible at it. So on top of having to go through all of this terror and tragedy, I end up feeling like a loser for not handling it better. Not praising in the storm and all of that.

I could feel myself becoming bitter though I hadn’t named it yet. Just a turning in my spirit. A hardening in my heart that felt quite justifiable considering what all we have been through. The things you cannot unsee are nothing compared to the things you cannot unfeel. So the bitter root reached down and that’s how satan gets you. The things that grow up, reach for the light, the things that grow down, grow in the dark. Unseen, untouched until those roots twist and turn and choke the life out of everything around it. It’s hard talking about it, sharing this piece of my journey. I once heard a lady on Instagram say she had a really hard time that was so devastating to her because the Lord was silent in her life for 3 months. 3 months?! I’m so glad she wasn’t saying it directly to me. Oh, the scalpel sharp words a bitter heart can deliver with surgical precision.

The Lord’s deliverance often feels more like devastation. And that brings us to the bitter water. God had delivered the Israelite’s out of Egypt but they had not yet reached the Promised Land. They were in the Wilderness of Shur, 3 days with no water and they came upon the waters of Marah but it was too bitter to drink from it. Hadn’t they already been through enough? It wasn’t that the thirst was so bad, it was everything that came before it. The water was right there but could serve no purpose. So God told Moses to throw a log into the water. The Hebrew word for log here (H6086) is more often translated as tree. So God tells Moses to throw a tree in the water, and he did and the waters became sweet. Sweet waters. Can you imagine drinking that?

After asking God what is wrong with me for the umpteenth time, He dropped the word bitter into my heart. The first thing I thought of was the wood in the waters at Marah. My first question was “Where do I get wood to drop in my bitter water?” His response was of course, Jesus. It took me a week to realize what He was saying.

John 19:33 But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. ³⁴ But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.

When God sweetened the waters at Marah He had Moses throw wood in the water which would be strange except for the fact that when God wanted to pardon the bitterness of our sin, He had Jesus put His very own water on the wood. Jesus, our Living Water, poured out His life, to give me mine. When they pierced His side, literal water from His body was spilled on that wooden cross.

Wood in the water, Water on the wood.

God not only let Him do it but it was His will for Jesus to die for me. I finally realized that the bitterness in my spirit had grown from the terrifying question one tries never to think about and dares never to ask. Is God really good? Is God really who He says He is? Is He really good all of the time? God pointed out that I was the one trying to determine what was good. What makes something good? How it feels? Tastes? Looks? How it makes me feel? By that definition alone I could be describing sin. That is why It is not I that determine goodness, it’s God alone. If I’m not willing to believe that He is good, how can I ever trust that He has me during the hard times? That is the darkness that nurtures bitterness.

I love the story of how Billy Graham walked into the woods one night to grapple with questions about his faith. He determined to trust God at His word, in His word that night and thank God for all of us he did. I’ve been in the wilderness grumbling for decades. Where are you, Lord? Why won’t you fix this Lord, why won’t you talk to me Lord. I want Him to make everything make sense to me.

But if I am constantly determining that what is good, is bad, because it feels bad or hard, how can He ever make anything make sense to me? Bitterness and arrogance go hand in hand. False pride says that I can determine whether or not God is good based on whether or not I like what He has given me. As if I can be the only Christian to reject the trials and tribulations package.

Jesus is the Living Water. He makes all things new. He makes the bitter water sweet. The Israelites came to the water but the water could NOT serve the purpose it was created for because of it’s bitterness. It was still water, but it needed to be purified. It is the same for us. Jesus, The Living Water, who is in us, purifying us so we can then fulfill our purpose. We cannot serve our purpose if we are bitter any more than the waters at Marah. Jesus is either the Good Shepherd who knows where He is taking His sheep or He isn’t. That is the wilderness we need to step into and not come out of until we have decided that God is in fact good. All of the time. All of the hurting, broken, lonely, questioning time.

Romans 8:28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Jesus pours into us, purifies us and we can then pour it back out into this hurting and broken world. Everything that honors Him, tiny tributaries flowing straight back to His heart. We get to take the Living Water and pour it on the dry, cracked places. Aren’t we all the little rivers of Jesus?

©Bobbi Adams 2024