Love is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. Love joyfully celebrates honesty and finds no delight in what is wrong. 1 Corinthians 13:6 (TPT)
Irritated and Frustrated – Love Series – Part 5
Go to PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5 | PART 6 | PART 7
On a personal level, this scripture hits home straight away.
– I get easily irritated
– I can be quick to take offense
– celebrate honesty?
– find no delight in wrong?
Here’s the thing: you’re not meant to let shame sit on your shoulder while you read the Bible (or anything else). God is not in the business of shaming you into his purposes.
As much as this kind of love is the goal, it’s the kind of love we are swimming in, too. God is not easily irritated or quick to take offense. In fact, The Divine celebrates honesty.
God doesn’t delight in what is wrong. And the thing that’s most wrong about us is not our actions or behaviors, but our dishonesty about our hearts and minds.
Shame cannot survive empathy and honesty. Transformation can only take place in our lives when we get vulnerable and real.
Rather than trying to adhere to this verse like a “to-do” list, we should dig into what lies behind our irritations, offenses, and dishonesties.
We get irritated by people who believe the opposite about an important social issue.
We get irritated by interruptions and poor service.
We get offended by other people's inability to buy into our stories and visions.
We get offended when people let us down and don’t “show up” like we thought they would.
We delight in wrong when we piously celebrate people's failures and when we relish in our own emotional outbursts.
Where do these reactions come from?
I’m guessing for most of us, they probably come from shame, pain, unrealistic expectations, scarcity, failure, low-self esteem, a sense of entitlement, jealousy, greed…
Rather than running from irritations, the offenses and dishonesty, own up to them. Smother them with love. Disarm them with empathy.
When I have the presence of mind to do this, I apologize to my kids when I get frustrated with them or yell at them. I (try to) take the time to explain to them why I was mad and where it came from. I ask them to forgive me (celebrate the honesty).
I think it shows them that in the presence of these other negative emotions, love doesn’t cower or flee or hide. It moves in…
Celebrating honesty is difficult. Sometimes the honest news is not the news we want to hear. But, it is always the news we can do the most with. When someone tells you a hard-to-bare truth, or secret, or sin, shame, whatever… honor that moment. Joyfully celebrate it. There’s grace for it.
Dig to the bottom of your frustrations and offenses, find out what's really going on beneath the surface. Be honest.
Let love move in on your frustrations. Let it move in when others are frustrated with you.
Your turn… how do you deal with frustration and irritation? Leave us your comments below.
Go to Part 6 – Love Never Stops »
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This is good to hear. Yes, the clue is honesty.
I read a book about a method, called “non-violent communication”, which is about how to deal when you get offended:
1/ To realize you are offended (honesty) and to identify which behavior or what happened to make you feel like this.
2/ To identify the other feelings that such a thing conveys in you: irritation, frustration…
3/ Identify your needs that were not filled.
4/ Once you have gone through all these steps, communicate to the person your need, what in the behavior made you feel upset without any judgement and with love.
That’s a good way to avoid arguments and quick reactions which often leads to even more pain. In this way to communicate, love is the key.
This is efficient and lead to good results 🙂
This is such a great strategy Manu… I’ve seen that book and been tempted to read it… I think you may’ve convinced me to add it to my (long) list!
Much love and thanks for the adding your experience and perspective!
Much love
Timing of this is perfect. I’m really trying to see what’s beneath my anger lately.
Hey April – so relate to you! Someone once said to me that frustration is “wanting and expecting a different result than what you’re presented with in the moment.” For example we get frustrated when we call up the phone company with the expectation that our simple problem should be solved in 5 minutes. But it takes 2 hours. We’re passed around from department to department. Even though they could have done a better job, there is nothing that can really change the process that it took to get the outcome for us in that instance. When we change our expectations in the moment (when facing opposition to ours) it helps us settle into the rhythm of grace for that moment. It takes all the tension out of the interaction and we accept we what are presented with. BTW I am not saying we should lay down and die when faced with every opposition – I just personally recognise the frustration as it rises within me. Then I assess what’s causing it in the interaction. Then I ask myself, “Am I willing to let go of how I feel about this particular issue, this particular instance?”
It makes getting stuck in traffic (for example) so much more bearable as frustration and anger end up usually being wasted emotion and when I accept that what I have in front of me is just that – what I have in front of me!
This has helped me on so many levels. Dealing with hard-to-face issues in my relationships, both professional and personal.
Another key question is “If I get my way, how much will it actually affect my life in the big picture?” This helps rationalise and think objectively about this issue (by engaging the pre-frontal cortex of your brain – the complex and problem solving part!)
Anyway thanks for sharing and sorry for the long reply… I didn’t expect it to be this long but kinda just started typing and got on a roll! Haha…
Much love and many thanks
Jesse