I’m in a season of frustration. Have you ever been there?
Nothing is all that bad, really. I’m not suffering, I’m not destitute, I am, actually, blessed beyond measure. I know this.
I’m just in a phase where I desperately need a win. Spiritually and physically and vocationally.
The poison is this: I’ve chosen the bad path of allowing my mind to marinate in the resentments I feel toward those I perceive as either standing in my way, not pulling their own weight, or not focused on the goal.
That’s an ugly place to be, mentally and spiritually.
I’m not sure how to pull out of this dive. So instead I think I’ll heap hot coals on my head.
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing
, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8a ESV
I’ve been to a number of weddings where that passage has been read. I’ve even been the one reading it. I think that’s great. A wedding is a very appropriate place to talk about love. But I also wonder why we so often read this passage where it’s so easy to hear. It’s easy to love at a wedding.
My bitter soul is raising all kinds of objections to this passage right now. I don’t want to love. I want to strike. I want to fire. I want to rant. I want to chew gum and kick behonkus and I’m all out of juicy fruit at the moment.
Love is not irritable or resentful. I’m doomed.
I need grace and mercy more than I need my circumstances to change. I need repentance more than I need rest. I need a heart full of love more than I need the people “causing my problems” to shape up or ship out.
I’ll leave this here. I’m in turmoil, though few would see it. I’m spoiled as well, as anyone familiar with my life circumstances knows. I’m tempted daily toward fight or flight without precisely knowing who to fight or what I should flee from.
Why so downcast, O my soul? Best to keep soldiering on.
Love is patient.