Bitterness in the face of difficulty from other believers

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1994.

Thank you very much for the succession of your newsletters, all of which I have read with great interest, and I may say, with admiration also for the tremendous amount of work that you do for God and for his people. I am distressed to hear of the continuing attacks on you from someone in your place of work, and I am glad to hear that you have been completely exonerated.

As to your struggle with bitterness, I can well understand how deep and lasting a struggle that would be. Perhaps, after all, it is not altogether bitterness that rises in you, but a sense of sorrow and also a sense of righteous anger at the way Christians can lend themselves—all unwittingly—to further the destructive purposes of Satan against the work of the Lord.

Reading Paul's remark about Alexander the coppersmith who did him much evil, I get the impression that Paul too had some very strong feelings against people like that, who opposed the work of God by maliciously opposing him. I cannot bring myself to think that such remarks by Paul were sinful. Can you?

May the Lord support you and your valuable ministry, and give you all the spiritual, emotional and physical strength that you need for the completion of his purposes.

With much love in the Lord from your fellow soldier in Christ,