Chapter 8 of Jan Johnson's book Enjoying the Presence of God is about finding God when we're irritated. Most of the examples she uses deal with people who aggravate us during our day; the people in our car pool, the person who cut us off in traffic etc. The example she does not give is the first time parent trying to survive the first month of parenting. We are into week three and I am typing this one handed while holding Evan so Karen can have five more minutes of sleep. Evan is at that stage when eating, messing diapers, and sleeping just aren't enough. He can't tell us what he wants/needs so he cries - and screams through much of the afternoon. It's not an all day thing, but it frays the nerves very quickly. We love him to death, but here lately those are the times we find ourselves looking to God for strength, peace, and most of all PATIENCE.
The encouraging thing about what Johnson writes is her reminder it is okay to go to God with our anger, and our frustration - with ourselves or with other people. We should certainly have a healthy fear of God, but that doesn't mean we, like Evan, cannot cry out to our heavenly Father in frustration. It is okay to get angry. The trouble comes when that anger causes us to sin. It is not a sin to confess that anger to God. YHWH already knows what you are mad about, but offering it up to God is a great way of starting to let that anger go instead of acting on that frustration in malice.
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