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Life is perplexing. It has been ever since we broke this place. And that means we get perplexed. There is a very natural and seductive way that we deal with our perplexities that this Scripture powerfully addresses. Even more powerful, however, is the way the Lord teaches us to properly deal with our perplexities. Listen in!
There’s a lot we can learn about bitterness from what we see here. A lot. And we could talk about it. We could talk about how we tend to carry it somewhere deep inside. That resentment. That anger. That feeling down there that life isn’t exactly as it should be. That thing or things that make your soul want to scrunch up its face like you just tasted something that makes your taste buds reel and makes you want to spit your own life out. There are many things we can learn from bitterness here and we will, but there is one thing we must learn. Listen in.
You can read the opening of this story in a Robert Frost kind of way - as a chance to ask yourself if you'll travel the road less traveled and hold onto someone who is valueless to you. You can also read the opening to this story as tragedy from beginning to end. You can even further read this story as the search for security or, more properly, insecure ways of trying to be secure. All of those readings, however, aren't the right ones. What is the right one? Listen in. You'll unlock security for your life with the narrator if you do.