When was the last time you allowed your anger to just overwhelm you and in that moment of being overwhelmed you did things that you would not normally do? For me, it was Thursday. I was talking to Susan about the people who are currently renting our house and who we have already had to take to court once because they refuse to pay their rent on time or at all as now the case seems to be. Not only that, this woman lies and bounces checks to us for thousands of dollars creating real difficulty even though we have tried to work with them and help them in every way possible. We go to court and the judge says, well you should just be grateful to have renters in this economy and I'm thinking, you're an idiot, how is having renters who don't pay any better than not having renters?(More proof that graduating from Law School is not too difficult) I would rather have no one in my house than to collect no rent and having to go through all these hassles and this frustration. So I'm talking to Susan about this on Thursday and I'm getting so angry that I find myself threatening to drive to Panama City this weekend and grab this woman by her throat and throw her and her kids out on their butts (gotta admit I didn't say butts) and unleash biblical vengeance on them. Then I hung up and I replayed the moment in my mind and I realized how ugly I had allowed myself to become in it. Not only was I seriously thinking about inflicting bodily harm on a woman and two kids, I was using some language that I don't ever use because of just the ignorance it portrays. If you are a curser, you just sound stupid when you do it, trust me. Why would I allow myself to regress into that type of behavior over anything? The answer for me, a lack of faith. If I really believed that God was working all things for my good, then I would trust Him with this. In that moment I didn't.
I fell back into default mode, which for me is wanting to handle everything myself. The problem with that is that it has never worked. It is that stubborn desire that has created most of the pain and regret in my life and yet I am still so quick to revert back to it. Thank God that He allows us moments of clarity and reflection to realize how ugly we can be left to our own devices and that He is faithful to forgive and to help us learn and grow from each mistake. If we want to carry the full burden of our own lives, He will certainly let us but the weight is more than we can bare and the strain of it robs us of the beauty of who we are. I hope this week in those moments where you are challenged beyond what you think you can handle, that you will allow God to carry that weight and not allow it to rob you of who you are.
“Difficulties show men what they are. In case of any difficulty remember that God has pitted you against a rough antagonist that you may be a conqueror, and this cannot be without toil.” - Epicetus
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