Frustration, Impatience, and Control, Part 2

Impatience can be a source of great emotional distress. Dictionary.com defines impatience as "an eager desire for relief or change; restlessness," or "intolerance of anything that thwarts, delays, or hinders."

I got a flat tire on my way to a very important appointment. I had an hour to spare, but when I attempted to change the despicable item, I found myself unable to lift the car because my jack was missing parts! As if that were not enough, once I finally did manage to install the spare tire, it had low air pressure!!!

That was a frustrating experience. My level of frustration escalated as the time of my appointment came and went. My feelings could certainly be described as "intolerance of anything that thwarts, delays, or hinders" by the end of the experience. You could also describe them as rage.

In retrospective, I should have taken a few minutes to collect myself, connect, and talk to God about the situation and proceed to analyze the possible solutions in a systematic way. Instead, I chose to become angry. Anger is a natural enemy of common sense. By accepting the things I could not change (the flat tire, missing parts, and low air pressure) and trusting that God would see me through, I would have been able to resolve the issue much faster than I did.

Being content with your life requires trust in God, because we have to trust that He will take care of those things that we cannot.

Trusting God in difficult times helps keep us grounded and logical during those crises instead of reacting in an emotionally uncontrolled way that makes things even worse.

It is easy to have patience when you are not pressed for time; however, keeping your cool when time is of the essence and you encounter unforeseen delays is a completely different matter that requires a much greater level of spiritual maturity!!

I failed to accept the situation and trust God!!

In the end, it all turned out well. Event though I was thirty minutes late to my appointment, the meeting went on as planned and everything turned out fine. I could have prevented some major emotional distress by trusting God through those difficult couple of hours.

How often do you run into situations like this? How do you respond?

Frustration, Impatience, and Control

I have started to realize that there is a lot of frustration in my life that stems from impatience and the desire to control people and cituations that are well beyond my control.

Do you find yourself dealing with these issues?

Now, it is not a conscious decision. It is more like an attitude, something that happens automatically, in the background, and causes me to want to change things I could never change. The frustration arises from my inhability to change these factors.

The bible speaks about this issue in terms of contentment.

"Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment," 1 Timothy 6:6 ESV

Contentment seems to indicate an acceptance of how things are in the present, specially of those things I can not control. It does not mean that we like the present condition, or that we resign ourselves to living in it, but it does indicate an acceptance of them and, at the same time, a release of our desire to control and change them.

Do your best in whatever circumstance you find yourself, and let God take care of the rest. Identify the things that you can do something about, and do it. Identify the things that you can not do anything about, and release them to God. Try to identify how you got to where you are and learn from that so you can prevent it in the future.

Join us next time as we discuss the relationship between impatience and frustration!

Sticks and Stones

"Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me"

You have heard that saying before. You have probably also heard people disagree with it in resent years. I have to admit that it bothers me when I hear people disagree with that (non biblical) proverb. It is not that I think they are wrong in their disagreement; it's just that they have taken the saying out of context. The phrase is not incorrect; it is just incomplete. Additionally, it was originally deviced as a means to teach children how to react to insults. It's original intent was to teach children not to react physically to verbal insults, and to ignore them. Which is something that a lot of adults also need to learn.

Zig Ziglar quoted a little girl who said, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will break my heart."

Here is my version of it, "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me, unless I allow them to"

You, as an adult, have the power to choose whether other people's words will hurt you or not.

If someone approached you and tried to correct you by telling you that 2 + 2 is not equal to 4, you would probably laugh, ignore them, and continue living your life in peace. Why would this correction make no impact in your life?

Because of your confidence that the assertion is mistaken

You should be able to respond in the same way when anyone approaches you and corrects you in any way, as long as they are mistaken in their assertion.

Whether they are bringing up a character flaw, an attitude, action, or they are calling you every name in the book; as long as they are mistaken, you should be able to ignore them and keep living your life without disturbance. So the question is, why don't you react in this way? Here are the two possible answers to that question:

A. They are not mistaken and their assertion is correct, or
B. You are insecure about yourself

Today I want to challenge you to inspect the way you react to people during conflict. Are you confident enough to say to yourself, "They are wrong," and GRACEFULLY ignore them?

Or, if they are correct, are you humble enough to accept that they are correct in their assertion and ask for forgiveness, instead of becoming defensive?

How to Reduce Frustration

"Whoever restrains his words  has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding."  Proverbs 17:27, ESV

I had two people become seriously upset at me this  morning as I was driving to work. Apparently, I was not driving fast enough  for them. What I do not understand is why would they become so upset when  they could clearly see that there was someone in from of me blocking my  way. I was already going ten miles over the speed limit; there was no way  I could possibly go faster. Traffic would not allow it, and I would not  have gone faster even if it had been a possibility.

Life is full of annoying  little instances that cause frustration, delays, inconveniences, and so  forth. Some other instances are not so little, and can be much more painful  and difficult than traffic; these are a topic for a different post.

The  two drivers I encountered this morning were obviously shortsighted. They  could have avoided some serious heartache if they would have taken time  to look a little more carefully and think before reacting in anger. I hope  they have a different attitude towards their families.

We can save ourselves  a lot of frustration by having a little more knowledge and understanding,  like the proverb states. It is a matter of keeping a level head and analyzing  the situation we find ourselves in. It is a matter of understanding that  the past cannot be changed, but it can be learned from. It is a matter  of understanding that people are sinful, and they will let us down. It  is matter of understanding that no one can be perfect, including yourself  and your spouse (if you have, or will have, one.)

Undesirable circumstances are inevitable, but can be reduced by studying them, and learning how to minimize their occurrence.

How often do you find yourself angry, upset,  or frustrated simply because you did not take the time to step back and  look at the situation in more detail before reacting?