Learning to Live with Frustrations - Part 1

Now frustration is the result of our being inhibited in achieving or accomplishing or, uh, receiving what we want or what we want to do.

And we're hindered and in some way, uh, we're not able to gra- have our own desires, our own wishes granted, and so we feel frustration, an inability to achieve or to accomplish or to finish or to get what we want.

Now there are some things in life that you and I pray for and wish for that God will never grant.

It isn't because He's unkind or is it because He's impotent.

It is because in the wisdom of God, He knows better than to remove that frustration from our life.

And there are some things we would like to go to the scripture for, and you can fast and pray and beg and plead.

And if you're not listening to God to begin with, you can, you can do anything you want to.

But if God puts His finger there, and He leaves it there, and He's determined to leave it there for a given divinely designed reason to accomplish His will in your life, all the praying in the world's not gonna make it go.

Those are the things that frustrate us.

We can't have our way in a given circumstance.

And so we back off, and first of all, we get a little, um, rebellious toward God, or we want to argue with Him.

And then we want to compare ourselves with other people.

Then we want to weigh our good works against what, how bad we could be.

We go through all of that until finally the wise man or woman eventually says, "Okay, Lord, what is it that You're trying to say to me? I give up my rebellion trying to convince You of what You ought to do." Now frustration is a part of living because all of us are still human, and we live in a worldly, ungodly culture.

But even if we all as saints, if this whole world was only covered with saints, but we still had a sin principle within us, we'd still be frustrated with each other at times.

Now I'm not gonna give you a quick little ABC or 12345 how to get rid of your frustrations because I want to tell you there isn't anything in this Bible that says there is a key to eliminating all frustration in life.

It's not.

But there are some principles that teach us how to live with the frustrations that we have, and sometimes they're not of God.

Some of you are living in situations in your home that from all practical purposes you know that there's no human way for them to ever change.

So you have already decided, "I've got to learn to live with this," but maybe you're not doing so good.

Or in your vocation, there are situations there that you know that you're helpless to change, and you've prayed, and they don't change.

Sometimes they get worse.

And you keep asking God, "What in the world are You up to? In fact, I'm gonna quit this job and get me one where I can enjoy being around some Christians." And it may be that the day you quit your job, you stepped out of God's will.

Because you see, all frustration cannot be relegated to the devil.

He may be the channel through which it comes, but God allows certain frustrations in our life for our own spiritual maturing or to accomplish something that God wants to accomplish that is totally beyond our understanding, thinking, or comprehension.