Dealing with Frustration

2Timothy 1:9 (NLT) "For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan from before the beginning of time—to show us his grace through Christ Jesus."

Experiencing frustration in any area of your life can be a very troubling thing, but it is nothing when compared to being frustrated about something that is affecting your spiritual walk with Christ—something that is causing you to experience doubt in your relationship with God. Our precious Lord and Savior warned us in God’s Word that the student is not greater than the teacher; the Master endured struggle and strife, so we cannot expect that we will get by without enduring it ourselves. We simply cannot count on things always being peachy keen. Even though we know this, there are a few areas we count on to be unshakable in our lives. These are things like the love and support of our families, special relationships, our jobs, homes, and health. Subconsciously we might think, “I’m going through some challenges right now, but at least this one area of my life is safe.” When our enemy, the devil, attacks those things, the level of frustration we experience can be through the roof. Some of us even become angry at God, feeling that He should have given the devil notice that it’s hands off.

God has told us through the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6:12(NKJV), “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” It is very easy to try and pick a fight with a flesh and blood individual that may be plucking our nerves at the time, but this is a very futile and pointless exercise. The enemy knows our weak points. He knows the areas of our lives where we have displayed the least amount of spiritual and Christian discipline. He has watched as we’ve allowed ourselves to fly off the handle in various situations, and these are the very devices that he uses time and time again to throw us off our game.

What is the point of his shenanigans? The whole point of the devil’s tricks is to get us off focus so that he can steal our power. If he steals our focus, he can interrupt the flow; he can throw a monkey wrench in our ability to hear from heaven, and this is his chief motivation. We need only visit the record of Adam and Eve in the Old Testament Book of Genesis, and we’ll see that he did the very same thing with them. God created Adam and Eve in His image, and as recorded in Genesis 1:28, gave them dominion in the earth. The devil wanted this power for himself and set about a plan to swindle Adam and Eve out of what God had given them. The enemy knew that the act of doubting God’s Word and doubting His power is the number one way to cause any child of the King to lose out, so he got Adam and Eve to do just that; he tricked them into a mindset of doubt.

Genesis 2:16,17(NLT) tells us that God warned Adam, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden— 17 except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.” In Genesis 3:4, the devil tempted Eve and lied to her by saying, “You will not surely die.” Neither Adam or Eve were stupid people. The bible tells us that God communed with them daily and charged them with the tending and upkeep of the garden. If either of them had lacked capacity in any way, God would not have given them such a responsibility. Furthermore, they enjoyed mutual and splendid fellowship with the Holy Spirit. So, they were fully aware and enlightened, and made a conscious decision to doubt and disobey with their eyes wide opened.

If it can happen to them, it can happen to us. When our ears are not opened to hear God’s voice because we’ve allowed our focus to slip away from our relationship with Him, we begin to miss out. The devil used a lie to steal from the first man and woman, and he has no new tricks under the sun. In the same way that he stole from them, he steals from us by using lies; by getting us to doubt our identity in Christ and to fall into acting, behaving, speaking, and thinking beneath our privilege as God’s sons and daughters. Frustration is one of the enemy’s principle tricks. When he can get us vexed to the point of frustration, he knows that we are more apt to act out and respond with actions that demonstrate our level of frustration.

2Timothy 1:9 (NLT) says, “For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan from before the beginning of time—to show us his grace through Christ Jesus.” Not only has God saved us, but He has also called us. Yes, there’s a calling on our lives, and it has been a part of God’s plan even before the beginning of time. If our mistakes teach us nothing else, they teach us all we need to know about our weak and vulnerable places. They teach us where we’re exhibiting things like impatience, a lack of compassion, and selfishness. These can lead us away from God's calling—away from His blessings.

Once we have a full view of those traits within us, it’s not a time to wallow in self-pity, it’s a time to press into God more than we ever have before. The Apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:14, “I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” And this is exactly what you and I must do. Yes, life can be very frustrating, but we must have faith that God will take care of everything. He tells us to trust Him with every aspect of our lives. So, we will do ourselves the greatest service to learn to see this frustration as a wake-up call, because God is calling us to prepare ourselves for greater ways to live, love, and be a blessing to the body of Christ.■

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Dealing with Frustration

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