I feel like I’m constantly frustrated. How about you? I’m actually quite tired of it so I’ve been thinking about what I should do…..
Coincidentally, last week I was reading a devotional and the verse was: 1 THESSALONIANS 5:18 No matter what happens, always be thankful, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.
I’m going on my intuition here and really just trying to find a way to get rid of my frustration but I think there’s a connection between frustration and thankfulness. Maybe it’s the more gratitude I can generate, the less frustration I’ll feel. What do you think?
I’m going to test this this week. I have a little practice that I try to do daily called “daily questions.” I ask myself, “Did I do my best to…” and I have several of them such as 1) Set clear goals? 2) Make progress towards my goals 3) Move 5 times…. and there’s a whole bunch more. But this week I’m going to start asking myself, “Did I do my best to be grateful no matter what happens?”
“No matter what happens” is reality. I’m learning that frustration is the gap between reality and my expectations. I know this is pretty basic, but expectations are what I’m expecting to happen. So in the areas of my biggest frustration I have the biggest gap between what I’m expecting to happen and what actually happens.
For example, my love language is physical touch. I expect that a lot from my wife. But I hardly ever get what I expect and so I’m frustrated. I also expect my kids to do their chores every night without having to remind them. That also hardly ever happens.
So this week, instead of focusing on my expectations, I want to focus on being thankful, no matter what happens.
Faithfulness is Thankfulness
