Lamentations and Irritations

Maybe this happens to you.

I'm driving. I do a lot of driving. The car in front of me is slow, as if unsure of where it is going, but the road is such that I can't get around it. I get irritated.

I'm reading. I do a lot of reading. My phone rings and it breaks my concentration. I get irritated.

I'm trying to get somewhere. I do that a lot, too. But the person or people I'm going with are not ready to go because they are talking or checking something or just being slow. I get irritated.

I don't feel well. Fortunately, that doesn't happen very often. But when it does, and I can't find any relief ... I get irritated.

Now, I don't think I get irritated a lot. But I do get irritated.

The comedian Whoopi Goldberg once said, "I don't have pet peeves. I have whole kennels of irritation."

I can blame a lot of things for my irritation: that goofball driver who doesn't know where they are going; that person who calls me for some inane reason when I'm enjoying a good book; those people who are lollygagging when they should be ready to go; getting sick through no fault of my own.

But at the end of the day, being irritated is my problem.

Or maybe, it's my sin.

It comes out of my own selfishness. I'm not irritated for any noble reason, for lack of justice or righteousness or mercy being displayed to someone who needs it; I'm irritated because I'm not getting what I want, when my desires are being denied, delayed, or disrupted.

What I want to do may not be a bad thing. Certainly there is nothing wrong with travel, or reading, or being on time for an appointment, or being sick.

But, like most sin, it's not the thing that is bad, but my action (or reaction) to get what that thing is.

It's putting my own wants, desires, self - first.

Hebrews 12:1 says, "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us ..." We're being watched by those witnesses who exists across that great gulf between this world and the spiritual world, those folks who now have a true understanding of time and what matters. Since we're living our lives before those witnesses, we should not get hindered and entangled in things that don't really matter, and run the race that is before us not with great speed but with patience and endurance, since we don't know where the finish line is anyway or how soon we may reach it.

Proverbs 15:1 says "A gentle word turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." I wonder how many people I provoke in a given day by my irritability. I'm very aware that how I act affects other people. If I'm harsh with people in my office, they can become harsh in how they deal with the people we're here to help. If I'm rude to the person in the drive-thru window, they may take it out on the next person in line. If, while driving, I get right up on the bumper of the person who doesn't seem to know where they are going or just isn't comfortable driving fast, I may cause them anxiety then fear then anger over feeling pushed or intimidated. I know if I come home in the evening and yell my family, they learn to mimic my behavior - maybe not right then, but they will at some point down the road because I am their example.

"Love," writes the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 13, is not "rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful." In other words, we're not to live with a short fuse, demanding to be treated "fairly" (by my standards of "fair," of course). I heard someone once say, "Don't live by the Golden Rule - 'Treat others as you want to be treated.' No, live by the Platinum Rule - 'Treat others the way they deserve and want to be treated.'

I don't know about the 'Platinum Rule,' but I think there is something to what he was saying.

God gets angry. But I don't think He gets irritated.

Why do I think that? Because it seems that when God gets angry, He takes a long time to get there (Exodus 34:6 says God is slow to anger). Throughout the Old Testament, the children of Israel seem to be crying out for God to act on their behalf, but God seems to be taking his own sweet time. See, God only gets angry when it's time to get angry, when it is the last resort and his Righteousness and Justice have been ignored and even despised.

And then, when God does get angry, it's always with just the right measure. Oh, it may be devastating, but it makes His point and is rarely forgotten.

I need to be more like that. I need to summon my anger judiciously, and only when absolutely necessary and only for the absolutely right reasons. James 1:19 says we are to be "slow to anger." Ephesians 4:26 says there are times when we should be angry, but not to let that anger cause us to sin.

I read an article from a pastor named Jon Bloom who wrote, "Jesus didn’t die for our punctuality, earthly reputation, convenience, or our leisure. But he did die for souls. It is likely that the worth of the soul(s) we’re irritable with is infinitely more precious to God than the thing we desire. We must not dishonor God, whose image that person bears, by being irritable with them. There are necessary times for considered, thoughtful, measured, righteous, loving anger at priceless but sinful souls. But there is never a right time for irritability."

"Never a right time for irritability."

Clearly, this guy has never driven in my lane, or read the book I'm reading, or tried to go someplace with the people I am supposed to go places with, or ...

No. He probably has. My guess is, we all have.

I don't like to think of my irritability as sin. I like to think of it as more of an inconvenience, something that can be justified and excused because of the actions of things beyond my control.

My control.

But guess what? Most of life is beyond my control. And until I recognize whose control my life is under, I'm going to be irritated.