I am reading this book by Joyce Meyer called Living Beyond Your Feelings. It's been good. Most of it I "know" (but don't apply), some of it is enlightening (still not really applying), but a couple things have really stood out. Hoping to apply those things.
This part stood out to me, from the book:
"One thing that helps me deal properly with anger is to realize that sometimes God permits people to irritate me in order to help me grow in patience and unconditional love. None of the fruit of the Spirit develops without something to make us exercise them...... The offending person's bad behavior is not right, but God often uses them as sandpaper in our lives, to polish our rough edges. He is more concerned about changing our characters than He is about changing our circumstances to make them all comfortable for us." (Joyce Meyer)
One of my biggest issues are irritants in my life. Well, I shouldn't say the irritants are the biggest issues, how I handle them are.... Then I wonder, will these irritants continue to irritate until I change my attitude, develop patience... self control? Unfortunately... they probably will.
The reason is, because until I can learn to "deal with it and not let it bother me" new things will constantly begin to bother me. The problem is with me, not with those around me.
The next question I always have is, "well, then what do I do?" Do I just continue to let people treat me wrong, or make wrong decisions that affect me and my kids, do I just become a doormat?
If I am supposed to "give it to God", how do I do that? Sometimes I just feel like I am talking into thin air. Just stepping back and letting God deal with it doesn't really work does it? Honestly.... I don't know from personal experience. I don't think I've ever given God a fair chance. What I do know, is that trying to "fix it"... or "force others to change" DOES NOT work... so why not try something new? Besides, giving issues to God has worked for other people that I know.
Still don't know how though...
The next part that stood out to me in the book was when Joyce says, "How can you know when you express anger and when to just let it go?"
Well, she goes through a process.
First she gives it to God. That's the part I usually mess up. Still not sure how to do that exactly... I think it means to pray about it and then just wait on God to change the heart of the person that mistreated you. Just let it go. Keep quiet for the moment.
Second if it's still bothering her after a couple days (a couple days!?...eek, not sure if I can keep my mouth shut that long!), then she talks to someone about it... hoping that just getting it out in the open will help.
Third, if that doesn't help she seeks God on whether or not she should confront the person. I've never gotten this far so I don't know how one knows if God gives the permission to bring it up to the person. I would assume that if I was still bothered by this situation after step one and two that it would probably be necessary to confront them in order to not build resentment on my part.
Last you confront them. Important: I always want to make sure that I am doing it for their good and not my own need to "tell them off" or try and change them. Yikes. So, bottom line, I've learned a lot, just from that. I might try it.
If it's someone outside my family that has "hurt" me, steps one, two, and three are easy because I don't want to confront them... if it's Steven then I don't even make it to step one normally. I am going to try that today. Yes, today. I'll let you know how it goes.
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