“When the angel of the LORD appeared to Gideon, he said, ‘The LORD is with you, mighty warrior.’ ‘But sir,’ Gideon replied, ‘if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?'” (Judges 6:12-13).
“You will never know what your programs on frustration meant to me,” wrote a missionary who had been held captive by the FARC guerillas in a Colombian jungle. He had listened to Guidelines by short wave radio. His frustration was akin to that experienced by Joseph, who was unjustly thrown into prison, and hoped and prayed daily for release, yet nothing seemed to happen. That’s when your heart cries out, “How long, O Lord? How long?” And then adds, “God, are you really there? Are you hearing my cry?”
Frustration is the result of not getting what you want, of facing a situation you wish didn’t exist, one that irritates and annoys you, usually something you cannot change. Like what? Consider the following.
For years you have been putting money into a retirement account. Your stockbroker told you, “This is as solid as the rock of Gibraltar.” Yet, your Gibraltar, like the one in Spain, has plenty of holes punched in the rock, and your rock-solid investment collapsed, leaving you without money for your future and retirement. A former military officer in Ukraine told me, “When I retired, I had enough money to buy an apartment and two cars, but when our currency was devalued, I didn’t have enough money left to buy two tires for the car I couldn’t afford.” That’s frustrating.
You are starting a new company and you’ve been promised venture capital that will get your business rolling. You’re down to your last month’s operating expenses when you get a phone call saying, “There will be no money.” The investor is being investigated by bank examiners who have frozen his assets. That’s frustrating.
You’ve taken your car into the shop three times this month. “We’ve got it fixed this time,” the shop foreman told you with a big smile. Yet you go out the next morning in a hurry to get started, turn the key, nothing happens. That’s frustrating.
“I’ll never take a drink again,” your husband tells you, but when he comes home, his breath tells you another story. That’s frustrating.
Well, chances are you could tell your own story, right? But here’s the question. How do you cope with your frustration today? With all of our time-saving devices, have we only compounded the frustration with things that are so complex it takes a rocket scientist to figure them out? Have we so overburdened ourselves with unrealistic expectations, that to avoid the frustration of not seeing things come together, you would have to walk on water and have an inside pull with heaven that Elijah himself didn’t have?
I’ve introduced the problem—one you already know a lot about, and on the commentaries that follow, we’re going to look at solutions to the growing frustrations of life in the 21st century.
Here’s a closing thought: something to hold on to today. Nothing comes as a surprise to God. The frustration that upset your schedule and sent your blood pressure up didn’t take Him by surprise. He knew about everything that would happen to you long before you were born. At the same time, you have to understand that God does care about your life and what happens to you. Jesus Christ told His followers: “I will be with you always, even to the end of the world.”
If you feel like Gideon, who said, “If the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us?” be patient. God loves you too much to eliminate your frustration, but will use it to make you a stronger, better person. Of that you can be sure.
Resource reading: Judges 6:1-16.
