frustration

Opening Prayer: O Lord, help me to pay careful attention to my own frustrations, because they might just be there to teach me that my plans are not your plans, and my goals are not your goals.  Help, O Lord, to align my desires with your desires, so that I can do your will, and not my own, all the days of my life.

Scripture: Psalm 33:10-11

Journal: What is your level of frustration these days?  What is causing it?  What is God trying to teach you as a result?  How might your frustration level be connected to having different goals

Reflection: A wise saint once told me that frustration is always a result of blocked goals.  So, whenever we are frustrated, we need to determine what goal is being blocked, and decern whether or not that goal is legitimate.

That’s where prayer and reflection and alignment come in, because quite often the goals God has for us are very different from the goals we have for ourselves.  And when that is the case, he tends to frustrate or thwart our efforts because his plans for us are both best and eternal.

My desires, for example, might be for a life of comfort and ease, when he desires so much more for me than that.  He desires my growth.  He desires that I become humble and godly and loving, and those things never come easy.  In as loving a way as possible, God blocks and thwarts and frustrates in order to make us more into the people he dreamt us to be.

Pray

Closing Prayer: Thank you, O Lord, that you love me enough to thwart and frustrate me when I am settling for less than you desire for me.  Align my mind with your mind, and my heart with your heart, so that I can become more and more like you each day.