Running Late

There is none righteous, no not one. (Romans 3:10)

Its 5-0 what?

    

This was not my best moment.  As I woke up on that fateful morning, a few weeks ago, I was already half an hour late to pick up a fellow employee.  Not to mention, I was supposed to be at work at 5 am.  It just felt like the day was doomed and I couldn’t see how it could be fixed.  My mind was swirling as I yelled at the bedroom wall in frustration, waking up my wife.

  

Then in the midst of my tantrum, my wife asked me, “can I help? ‘ Like a jerk I said, “No.”  My brain felt like an Etch-a-Sketch that had just been shaken clean.  Never mind I didn’t even know how she could help.  In hind sight, I should have kissed her and told her, “it was enough that she cared and that was more than enough help.”  However her mere tolerance of my confused state was a far better solution than telling me to get my act together.

Have you ever wondered what goes through an angry or frustrated person’s mind? Allow me to share some of the things that were running through my confused mind on that particular morning:

1 I’m already late- can’t be fixed.

2- Going to lose overtime pay- can’t be recouped.

3- Have to do reconnaissance and call the two guys from work to tell them I will be late- will be embarrassed

4- Must find the phone number of the guy I needed to pick up – frustrated at being disorganized.

5- After feeling an initial adrenaline rush, my body was starting to drag- can’t win.

6- Spilled coffee on my white shirt as I hurriedly got in to the car and yelled again-disgusted and angry.

7- Driving faster than I should, trying to make up time and save face- needless carelessness. 

Strange as it may sound, our anger can fuel us to do destructive things and, in my case, not be open to sound reasoning. Even when offered assistance by my wife to reset and try again, I pressed on feeling the need to fix it myself.  Notice I choose to let anger overtake my sensibilities.  My wretched human nature needed to be controlled like a matador tames a bull with his flowing red cape, instead of letting it run free, do damage or just act like a fool.

Unfortunately, like all of us, I have acted despicably before.  As a teen, I remember one particular nasty moment when I verbally insulted another guy about my own age for sport. The best way I can explain my poor behavior is with two reasons, albeit not excuses. One being, I was in a fury to impress another friend of mine, thinking incorrectly if I put someone else down it would elevate me. Second being, I had been put down by others in the past and had been hurt and strangely took it out on someone innocent.

My reasoning quickly vanished when I saw my victim’s facial expression and realized what I did could not be undone.  The guy I was trying to impress was even repulsed, which he should have been. Something I detested came over me, kind of like opening Pandora’s Box, and it was awful.  There simply is no good reason to hurt someone else for sport.

Now why would I be such a knuckleheaded jerk?  Mainly because sin is nasty.  Sin by definition means treating others unfairly, meanly, and thinking only of yourself.  In my opinion, anger can aptly be described as a tornado.  It is fueled by anger, frustration, embarrassment, and feeling like a loser.  When all those emotions come to together and then are unleashed by an individual on others, it can do some serious damage to the landscape of those around us.

This brings me back to an excellent lesson my wife taught me that fateful day, while I was being an angry jerk.  Fortunately, I did not take my anger out on her, but I made a fool out of myself and one of my daughters was even awakened by my tirade.  On that day, my wife simply loved me, and love has a way of making anger look like a downright waste of time.

We should never be running too late to allow anger, like coffee stains a white shirt, to ruin a perfectly good day.

Swavel