[#Life] MidlifeSample

Frustration

Life can be frustrating. God intended for it to be that way, in hope that we would walk in freedom. The goal of frustrations in life is not that God would end them or change them. The goal should be that God would use frustration to change us. He does not want to change the circumstances—He wants to change us in the middle of them.

There comes a time in a person’s life when things stop making sense and we start to reconsider everything. This happens when we get lost using the GPS of the car and take some wrong turns, and it starts to recalculate. We become more aware and start noticing things that were unnoticed before. We reevaluate everything in our lives, and without wanting or calling for it, we become frustrated—not with the world or the people around us—but we become frustrated with ourselves. We start asking new questions about our lives and our achievements. We start realizing now that many of the things we thought were important are, in fact, not that important anymore. We are afraid of setting new goals, and we feel like our time to reach for the stars is something for the past, for when we were younger and stronger.

Do you feel like you can relate to some or all of those things? If so, it is good. It is necessary. It is necessary to get frustrated, but we need to learn to channel those frustrations and use them for the purpose that God intends.

We can take all of our frustrations and say, “Lord, it will never be perfect, but in hope I want to walk in the freedom of Christ. Jesus Christ, who was perfect, died on a cross to pay for my sins and to live in my heart through the Holy Spirit so that the suffering of this present world is not worthy to be compared to the glory that awaits me in heaven. So, Lord, I want to take all these frustrations and I want to give them to You. I want my frustrations to actually lead me to freedom in You. I want to use these things to begin to look up. I have been looking horizontally my whole life, trying to figure out how to make everything perfect. I want to instead say, ‘Lord, you have got to take care of it. You are the one who subjected this world to all of this to get us to depend on you. Help me to depend on you.’”