Now and again life brings us a perfect day: perfect weather, perfect food, a perfect day at work. Everyone you see, smiles and says kind words, and the neighbor's dog gives you a friendly wag of the tail as he wanders down the street to get into someone else's garbage. As you go to bed that night, the gentle patter of rain on the roof lulls you to sleep, and you think to yourself, "Wow, Self, what a perfect day!"

Unfortunately, there is also the other kind of day, the kind that gives you a headache every time you remember it. It rains by the bucketful, and every bucket falls on your head. Your umbrella sits serenely at home by the front door. That bowl of chili you had for lunch comes back to haunt you for the rest of the day. The boss is on your case about something all day long, and your worst nightmare of a customer calls you thirty-six times. Once you get home, the kids are sick, the TV is on the fritz, and your wife (or husband as the case may be) runs off to spend the night with Mother. And that gentle patter of rain? It falls down through a hole in the roof in a steady stream, right on top of your head.

We can joke about life's frustrations when they're someone else's, or when we look back at them from a safe distance. When we're actually going through them, though, they aren't funny at all. Our Enemy, Satan, knows where to attack us. He is an expert at finding the chinks in our armor, and attacking us there. For Christians, it seems that our most vulnerable times are right after a spiritual high, when we've seen some mighty movement of the Lord in our own lives, or in the lives of others. The Devil can not abide seeing us experience joy, so he tries his best to destroy it.

Frustration comes when we think things aren't going as they should. When we're blocked from achieving our goals, when other people don't respond as we expect, or when things don't happen on our timetable, we get angry, or disappointed, or hurt. If the frustration is intense enough, and if we consistently fall short of the mark, we may be tempted to just give up. What's the use of trying, if we're blocked on every hand? Often ChrIst gets lost because of the big "I" in the middle. Frustration comes because we measure life against the wrong standard, ours.

The greatest study in frustration in the Bible is Jonah. He had his own agenda, which didn't agree with what God called him to do. Instead of going where he was sent, to Nineveh, he headed in the opposite direction Once the Lord finally got his attention, in the belly of a big fish, he relented, but with a bad grace. He went to the Assyrian capital expecting to fail, and when he didn't, he got angry with the Lord once more. Like Jonah, we have our own goals in life, and when they differ from what God expects of us, we get angry when we can't reach them. Worse still, we attain the goals we set for ourselves, and find there is no satisfaction in the achievement.

There are many varieties of frustrations in life, great and small, but all of them happen because something, or someone, doesn't meet our expectation. Frustration and its near cousin, anxiety, are enemies of peace. At the heart of both is selfishness, the determination to trust our own abilities and have our own way. If we are blocked from achieving one of our goals, near or far, we must first examine the goal and see if it represents something we want or that God wants. If the Lord's will is nowhere to be found in what we propose, we should give it up, no matter how important it seems. If we believe we are doing something in obedience to the Lord, we need to make sure, through prayer and the counsel of other Christians, that this is really the case. If we're still convinced the Lord is in it, we may be trying to run ahead of him, or we may be trying to do it on our own.

When the Lord called me to ministry, after fifty years of waiting, I was eager to get on with it. For all the lessons I learned about waiting, it just seemed I had waited long enough. Starting this newsletter was easy, though I expected it to grow somewhat faster than it has. Writing songs was easy, and they came over a very short period of time. Even starting the web page was easy, and I had an idea about what form it should take. After that, though, about two months after I had a mountaintop experience with the Lord, everything stopped. No matter which way I turned, I was blocked. Only this devotional newsletter continued to develop, with just enough positive response to encourage me to continue.

I forgot every lesson I had learned. Frustration, anger, and disappointment became daily companions. Once more, as I so often had before, I gave up. That, of course, was what the Lord was waiting for. Only when we give up on ourselves, on our own abilities, can he do what he wants to do. Are life's frustrations getting you down, too? Just get your knees before the Lord, raise your hands and your face toward Heaven, and yell, "I give up!" And what do you think his response will be? "THANK YOU!"

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JESUS IS the Bridge Ministries

Beneath His Wings Devotionals - Vol. 1