“Fools show their annoyance at once” (Prov.12:16.) “Don’t be quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools” (Eccl.7:9). “Love isn’t irritable or resentful.” (1Cor.13:4-5).
Heavenly Father, Paul’s couplet about love not being “irritable or resentful” grabbed my attention today, for I woke up on the wrong side of the “peaceful, easy, feeling” bed this morning. I could blame it on many things—the war in Iran, my basketball team’s (UNC) struggles this year and Duke’s no-struggle year, the killer frost in route just before St Patty’s Day here in Franklin. I’ll stop there.
Thank you for your ready welcome, compassionate heart, sense of humor, and daily mercies. Blame and shame make lame excuses for my ISS—irritable spirit syndrome. So, I’ll cancel my plans for a pity party and relinquish my elder-brother attitude of a fool’s annoyance. Father, by your grace, settle me, center me, and gentle me for the day.
I am grateful for your steadfast love, inexhaustible patience, and perpetual kindness. I want to walk in your Spirit today much more than I want to leak irritation and resentment around people I love. This war pushes many of my buttons right now; but Jesus is Lord—not my buttons. College basketball is really awesome but really non-eternal. My daffodils have already survived our recent ice-storm, so what’s a mere 22-degree March 15th evening?
To be human is to know a wide range of emotions—including aggravation, annoyance, provocation, and vexation. But to be yours is to repent quicker when vines we didn’t plant wither (Jonah 4:1-11), return to Gospel-sanity and Gospel-kindness at the speed of grace, and especially it’s to re-set our gaze and hearts on Jesus. I really want to major in that last one today. Hallelujah and So Very Amen.
