Frustrations! Life is full of them, isn’t it! You go on a picnic–and rain comes pouring out of nowhere. You look forward all week to a very special meeting and you come down with bronchial morbidities. You’re waiting for an important phone call and you’ve accidentally left the phone partly off the hook.
Invariably someone will call me right when I have a writing project I want to work on. Sometimes it will be Mother. “Don’t forget my appointment with the doctor at two o’clock, dear,” she will remind me. I’II clap my hand to my head. I had forgotten–and I had planned to finish that project that day. With two hours at the doctor’s office across town, and getting Mom’s prescription, and bread she needed, there went the afternoon!
I didn’t get the job done that day, but the Lord reminded me that one of my jobs on earth is to be a good daughter. Frustration may come at the moment, but joy comes at thanksgiving.
People are more important than projects
Then again it might be one of my daughters needing someone to talk to, specifically Mom. Since they both live in another state now. I know it’s usually important to them when they call on a weekday. But frustrating though it may be to drop work on a project, I have felt gratified that my daughters look to me for wisdom, comfort, and prayer. And one of the “hats” the Lord has given me is that of “Mother.” Sometimes a woman will call needing counsel, encouragement, or prayer. Can I put this off until later? I asked the Lord. “Lord, what do I do when I’m working on a task or project and someone who needs help calls? I know that these hurting people are important to you.”
I just sat quietly for a moment. Then I sensed the Lord’s message: “Muriel, you take care of my business, and I’II take care of yours.”
I understood what he meant. If I helped the hurting ones when they needed me, the Lord would help me get done whatever I was doing when they called. It was a great deal and it has worked ever since I accepted it. So now when the phone rings and it’s someone who needs me, I just leave what I’m doing and minister to the hurting one.
Life is full of frustrations that we can’t do anything about, frustrations that come from people, from inanimate objects, from circumstances. Becoming a raving maniac or getting all tensed up doesn’t solve any problems; it just adds to them!
A way to beat frustrations
It must have been frustrating to the Apostle Paul to keep getting almost rocked to death, beaten, jeered at, thrown into chains in rat-infested prisons, when all he wanted to do was tell people the good news of Christ. Yet in the Philippian prison, he and Silas sang praise songs to God at midnight. God delivered them. An earthquake broke open their chains, and the jailer ran down and cried to them, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” That night the jailer and his family came to know Christ.
I’ve discovered that singing praise songs can lift me out of the darkest dungeon of despair and frustration! I think it has a lot to do with God’s pleasure at our faith in Him and our worship of Him during difficult times. He sends His elevating grace.
When we face frustrations today it is good to be reminded of the wisdom Paul wrote to the Philippians from a dungeon in Rome : “Rejoice in the Lord always…and again I say, Rejoice!”( Philippians 4:4)
Tags: frustration, frustrations, help, LIFE, Men, Muriel Larson, pet peeves, spiritual growth, trust god, Women
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