Frustrated

Have you ever been frustrated? Of course you have–we all have at one point in our lives. Let’s look at why we might get frustrated.

Frustration usually occurs when you have goals in your life and they are not being met. They are not being met by yourself or by those around you. For example, I was frustrated at a place where I worked. It was not that I couldn’t do the job, or that they were asking more of me than I could handle, it was that the way things were being done was changing and I felt the changes were making my job harder. I found that frustrating.

Perhaps it was also that my goals there and in life were changing. I guess frustration also comes into life with change.

Setting goals is very important and having goals that are aligned with those around us makes life run a lot smoother. In our family life, we often have the same goals, but sometimes they only seem the same. As we go along, we realize that our understanding of the goals was actually different. 

This leads me to wonder who in the Bible thought they had the same goals as others but really didn’t?

The first person that pops into my head is Peter. His goal was to reign with Christ in Jerusalem. To be seated with Christ and rule. To see Jesus as the Messiah. That all changed in the garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was arrested and taken away. Peter was dumbfounded and lost. He realized, maybe for the first time, that all the things that Jesus had been saying about dying were literally happening. 

What thoughts were running through his mind about being a leader with Jesus in Jerusalem? What had happened to his goals? Was his search in vain? 

He was frustrated with his goals. He realized that his goals were not the same as the goals of Jesus. He was thinking, what is going to happen to me? Do I even have goals and what are my new ones? 

He was frustrated. And then in his frustration he denies Jesus three times. (Read the account in John 18)

What are your goals? Do they match the ones that Jesus has set for you? An interesting question to ask the next time you are frustrated.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6