We inherited all of our emotions from God…we were created in His image, so we can experience His emotions. God gets frustrated at us when we willingly sin.
So, He understands that we will sometimes feel frustrated at life… at some of His decisions… at what He allows.
Jeremiah 12:1 NKJV
Righteous are You, O LORD, when I plead with You; Yet let me talk with You about Your judgments. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why are those happy who deal so treacherously?
Sometimes we can feel guilty over our frustration.
But remember, gettingfrustratedisn’t a sin unless…
It causes us to be ungrateful.
It causes us to be in thankful.
It causes us to complain rather than lament.
It causes us to doubt God.
It causes someone else to doubt God.
It causes us to lose our faith.
It causessomeone else to doubt God.
When you feel frustrated or even angry at yourself, others, life or even God…do a Google search for Psalms of Lament.
Notice how God teaches us to responsibly express our frustrations as long as we always end with expressing our trust in Him.
Psalm 13 (NKIV)
13 How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? (A)How long will You hide Your face from me? 2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart daily? How long will my enemy be exalted over me?
3 Consider and hear me, O Lord my God; (B)Enlighten my eyes, (C)Lest I sleep the sleep of death; 4 Lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed against him”; Lest those who trouble me rejoice when I am moved.
5 But I have trusted in Your mercy; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. 6 I will sing to the Lord, Because He has dealt bountifully with me.
Ephesians 4:26 (NKJV)
26 (A)“Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath,
One day a man who had been walking, catching rides and using Uber to go to work every day was given a car by a family member. He was so thankful. All he had to do was have a few things fixed. As he drove it home, he stopped to get gas and the car wouldn’t start. Wow! He had to have the car towed to the shop. After they fixed it, as he drove it home he let the window down and it wouldn’t come back up. He said, “Are you serious!!!!”
As he drove back to the shop so they could fix the window he noticed stains on the seats.
He said, “Why does everything I get have to have something wrong with it? Always ‘STAINED’?”
He then immediately remembered that he had transportation to work, the store or to take his lady friend out on a date. He also remembered the fact that the price he paid for the repairs was still better than having a car payment for years. He immediately thanked God and asked him to forgive him for so quickly allowing frustration to take away the excitement of his blessing.
So many times God will bless us and if it’s not exactly the way we wanted it or comes with some imperfections, inconveniences or responsibilities, we can find ourselves with an unthankful attitude.
The bible reminds us that every gift God gives is perfect…
James 1:17 (NKJV)
17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
The next time you begin to see stains on your blessings, remember that every gift from God is perfect.
Any stains we see are on our eyes and not the blessing.
One of the incredible ‘ripple effects’ of the COVID-19 pandemic is that after those who either lost or left their jobs because to the shut-down of the economy, many of those workers haven’t returned. To some workers, the federal and state unemployment compensation was a ‘windfall’, giving some people more income than they have ever earned in their lives.
Many of these jobs are considered ‘low skill’ and aren’t desirable to many Americans, especially if they have achieved certain levels of education.
The result is a huge worker shortage.
However, remember this… LOW SKILL DOESN’T MEAN NO SKILL!
From the people who make fast food ‘fast’, to the professionals who collect our garbage, the shortage of so-called ‘low skill’ workers has revealed that their absence can cause a huge disruption to our everyday lives.
With restaurants either closing early or closing their doors all together…
With essential services such as garbage collection being disrupted…
The real value in those who have been undervalued is being revealed.
My wife and I owned a small retail store in our twenties, and we understand the value in the people who work the register and protect your inventory.
As much as many people feel these workers don’t deserve $15 an hour, the fact that many workers who make only $8 an hour bring more value than that amount of money to the company.
The fact is that even though many top-level CEO’s make millions, they still don’t bring that much VALUE to the company. There is no justification for that much of a companies resources to be wasted on one person, especially while many of the front-line workers who make those huge salaries possible are dismissed with what equates to ‘pennies’.
I was once a Marketing Manager at the headquarters of a Fortune 300 company. Everyone above manager level received an annual bonus based on performance, while those below didn’t. Each year they were encouraged to help ‘hit that target’ that would ensure wonderful bonuses for all of us who were manager level or above.
What was their added incentive to work even harder for a reward that didn’t belong to them?
If anyone deserved a bonus it was the people who helped make the bonuses possible.
Sure many of these ‘lower-level’ jobs have traditionally been filled by high-school students, that still doesn’t diminish the value that they bring to our society.
Even in the bible, the landowner who was seeking workers to optimize his property, valued workers so much that he paid the workers who worked one hour the same amount of money he paid those who worked all day…
Matthew 20:8-16 (NKJV)
8 “So when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his steward, ‘Call the laborers and give them their wages, beginning with the last to the first.’ 9 And when those came who were hired about the eleventh hour, they each received a denarius. 10 But when the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise received each a denarius. 11 And when they had received it, they [a]complained against the landowner, 12 saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the heat of the day.’ 13 But he answered one of them and said, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. 15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things? Or is your eye evil because I am good?’ 16 So the last will be first, and the first last. For[b] many are called, but few chosen.”
Think about this, how long would it take for you to miss you local garbage collectors if they were on strike because they wanted more money?
Just because they’re working with garbage doesn’t mean they don’t deserve it.
BE BLESSTIFIED! 