Bitterness rarely announces itself as bitterness. It usually begins with something legitimate. Someone hurts you. Someone betrays you. Someone lies about you. Something is taken from you. Maybe you never receive the apology you believe you deserve. Maybe the person responsible never admits what they did. Maybe everyone else seems to move on while you’re left carrying the consequences.
At first, you’re simply hurt. Then you replay what happened. Then you replay it again. Before long, the hurt becomes anger. The anger becomes resentment. The resentment becomes bitterness. Somewhere along the way, something you thought you were holding onto begins holding onto you.
If you’ve read much of what I’ve written, you probably already know that I love music, and Christian metal has been part of the soundtrack of my life for a long time. I’ve listened to bands like Tourniquet for most of my life, so naturally there are songs buried somewhere in the back of my mind that surface when I’m walking through something or thinking about a particular subject. One of those songs is “Enveloped in Python” by Tourniquet.
I’ve heard the song countless times over the years, but sometimes an old song hits differently when life gives you a new reason to understand it. That’s what happened with this one. As I’ve thought more seriously about anger, forgiveness and the danger of allowing bitterness to take root in my own life, the imagery behind “Enveloped in Python” suddenly felt much more personal.
The song uses the disturbing image of someone keeping a python as a pet. The owner believes the snake is harmless. He believes he is the master and the animal is under his control. He becomes comfortable around it. But the python is still a python. Eventually, it coils around him.
That’s an unsettlingly accurate picture of bitterness. We tell ourselves, I can handle this. I’m not bitter. I’m just angry. I’m not holding a grudge. I just haven’t forgotten. I’m not obsessed with what happened. I just want justice. Sometimes those distinctions are legitimate. Anger itself is not automatically sinful. Remembering what happened isn’t necessarily wrong. Seeking justice through appropriate means isn’t wrong either. But our hearts can deceive us. We can believe we’re controlling our anger while our anger is slowly controlling us.
Bitterness doesn’t usually strangle someone all at once. It coils. One thought. One memory. One imaginary argument. One desire to see someone get what they deserve. Another coil. Another coil. Another coil. Until something we once believed was safely contained has begun squeezing the spiritual life out of us.
The Root We Let Grow
Hebrews gives perhaps the Bible’s clearest warning about bitterness: “Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled” (Hebrews 12:15).
That verse changes the way I think about bitterness because Scripture doesn’t describe it merely as a feeling. It describes it as a root. Roots grow underground. For a while, nobody sees them. Everything can look perfectly normal above the surface while underneath something is spreading.
Bitterness works the same way. It can begin with a legitimate wound. Someone betrayed you. Someone lied about you. Someone abandoned you. Someone took something from you that you cannot get back. The pain itself is real, and acknowledging that pain isn’t sinful. But something can begin growing from it. You replay what happened. You imagine conversations. You think about what you wish you had said. You wonder whether the person who hurt you will ever experience consequences. You start interpreting everything they do through the lens of the original offense. The root gets deeper.
Hebrews warns us about something else that is easy to overlook: “thereby many be defiled.” My bitterness doesn’t necessarily stop with me. It can affect my children. My friendships. My coworkers. My church. My future relationships. It can change the way I talk about people and the way I treat people who had absolutely nothing to do with the original wound.
That’s where the imagery from “Enveloped in Python” becomes so powerful. Scripture gives us a root. The song gives us a snake. Both contain the same warning: don’t underestimate something simply because you believe you have it under control.
At first, you’re holding it. Eventually, it’s holding you. One root grows deeper. One coil gets tighter. Then another, and another. Until something that began with what another person did to you has become something happening inside of you.
When Anger Feels Like Justice
One reason bitterness is so difficult to recognize is that it often disguises itself as justice. When someone has genuinely wronged us, anger can feel righteous. We want the truth known. We want accountability. We want consequences. We want somebody to acknowledge that what happened wasn’t right.
There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting justice. Scripture repeatedly demonstrates that God cares about truth and justice. The danger comes when our desire for justice becomes a desire for revenge, or when our anger becomes the thing that consumes our thoughts.
James gives us an important warning: “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God” (James 1:19–20).
That last sentence is difficult when you’ve been deeply hurt. The wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. My anger may feel powerful. It may even feel justified. But anger cannot accomplish what only God can accomplish.
Bitterness convinces us that remaining angry somehow punishes the person who hurt us. Most of the time, however, they aren’t the ones being consumed by it. We are. The python isn’t wrapped around them. It’s wrapped around us.
Bitterness Changes You
One of the frightening things about bitterness is that sometimes everybody else notices it before we do. We can become more cynical, suspicious, impatient and angry while continuing to insist that we’re fine. Eventually, every conversation somehow finds its way back to the offense. Every new situation gets interpreted through an old wound. Every person becomes a potential threat because somebody else once proved they couldn’t be trusted.
Pain can explain some of our behavior, but it cannot excuse everything our pain produces. At some point, we have to ask ourselves some uncomfortable questions. What is this doing to me? Am I becoming more compassionate or more cynical? More patient or more explosive? More forgiving or more vengeful? More trusting in God or more obsessed with obtaining justice myself? More like Christ or more like the person my pain is tempting me to become?
Those questions aren’t about pretending the original wrong didn’t matter. They’re about refusing to allow someone else’s sin to determine who we become.
The Person I Don’t Want to Become
This is where the subject becomes personal for me. I’ve experienced enough over the last year to understand why bitterness is tempting. There are things I still don’t understand. Things I believe were unfair. Things I wish I could change. Relationships I wish could be restored. There are moments when I still want answers, accountability and justice.
There are days when anger comes back quickly. A memory can trigger it. A piece of mail can trigger it. A photograph can trigger it. Something someone says can bring an entire situation rushing back into my mind. Sometimes the python I thought I had escaped suddenly feels like it’s trying to wrap another coil around me. But I don’t want bitterness to become my identity.
I don’t want to wake up five years from now and discover that the people or circumstances that hurt me are still controlling my emotions. I don’t want every conversation to somehow return to what happened. I don’t want anger to make me suspicious of everyone. I don’t want the wounds of one season to poison every relationship in the seasons that follow.
I especially don’t want my sons someday to encounter a father who spent years becoming harder, colder and angrier because he couldn’t release the past. I want them to see that a man can experience tremendous hurt without allowing that hurt to define him. I want them to understand that forgiveness isn’t weakness and bitterness isn’t strength.
Most importantly, I don’t want bitterness interfering with my relationship with Christ. I may not control what other people do, but I do have a responsibility for what I allow to grow inside my own heart.
Put It Away
Ephesians doesn’t give Christians much room to negotiate with bitterness: “Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice” (Ephesians 4:31).
Notice what Paul says: put it away. He doesn’t say nurture it until the other person apologizes. He doesn’t say keep it until the situation is resolved. He doesn’t say hold onto it until justice finally arrives. He says to put it away.
But Christianity doesn’t merely tell us what to remove. It tells us what should replace it. The very next verse says, “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:32). That’s the part that hurts. Forgiveness sounds wonderful until there’s actually someone to forgive.
Colossians 3:12–13 gives us a similar command, telling believers to put on mercy, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, “forbearing one another, and forgiving one another” just as Christ forgave us.
Forgiveness does not mean calling evil good. It doesn’t mean pretending something didn’t happen. It doesn’t automatically restore trust, remove consequences or eliminate appropriate boundaries. Forgiveness means I refuse to make revenge my responsibility. I surrender that debt to God.
That isn’t always a one-time decision. Sometimes forgiveness is something I have to choose again when another memory surfaces and another coil begins tightening.
Remembering Without Living There
Lamentations gives us one of the most beautiful pictures of this struggle. Jeremiah writes, “Remembering mine affliction and my misery, the wormwood and the gall. My soul hath them still in remembrance, and is humbled in me” (Lamentations 3:19–20).
He remembers. Scripture doesn’t tell us that healing requires pretending painful things never happened. Jeremiah doesn’t erase his suffering or convince himself that everything was fine. He remembers the affliction. But then something changes.
“This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. It is of the LORD’S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:21–23).
Jeremiah deliberately recalls something else. Pain says, Remember what they did. Faith says, Remember who God is. Pain says, Remember what you lost. Faith says, Remember what God has given. Bitterness says, Nothing will ever change. Faith says, His mercies are new every morning. The memory doesn’t disappear. It simply stops being the only thing we remember.
Don’t Feed the Snake
The brilliance of the python metaphor is that the danger begins long before the constriction. The danger begins when we decide the snake is harmless. That’s why bitterness has to be confronted early. Don’t pet it. Don’t feed it. Don’t convince yourself you can keep it around indefinitely without eventually being affected by it.
Take your anger to God. Tell Him exactly what happened. Lament. Pray. Seek wise counsel. Establish appropriate boundaries where they’re necessary. Pursue justice appropriately when justice needs to be pursued. There is nothing unspiritual about acknowledging that someone genuinely hurt you.
But don’t worship your wound. Don’t allow what someone did to you to determine what bitterness does inside you, because eventually the question isn’t simply whether someone hurt us. The question becomes what we’re allowing that hurt to turn us into.
There are wounds I still carry. There are situations in my life that aren’t resolved. There are prayers that haven’t been answered the way I hoped they would be. There are things I still want God to change. But I don’t have to wait until everything is resolved before I surrender my bitterness to God.
I can open my hands now. I can forgive without pretending the wrong was right. I can pursue justice without becoming consumed by revenge. I can remember without allowing the memory to rule me. I can establish boundaries without hatred. I can acknowledge the wound without continually picking at it, and I can trust God with the people and circumstances I cannot control.
Because bitterness may begin as something we believe we’re holding safely in our hands. But leave it there long enough, and eventually it starts to coil. The root grows deeper. The grip gets tighter, and before we realize what’s happening, we’re enveloped in the very thing we thought we controlled.
I refuse to let the python take over.
Related reading: If the hurt keeps resurfacing, read When You’ve Forgiven but the Anger Keeps Coming Back and Forgiveness Doesn’t Care What Gender You Are.
