Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Grace under pressure

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

Nobody likes stressful situations. The boss wants your report before you go home for the day, but the phone won’t stop ringing. You have scrimped and saved to buy a new car, but then the dentist says that your child needs braces. You invest countless hours in organizing a family reunion, then the day it is scheduled you end up sick in bed.

Times of stress can reveal a lot about us. People who are normally sweet tempered and patient can fly into a rage when dealing with tight deadlines, money shortages, or emotional problems. Like alcohol, stress exposes what we are really like inside; when you are under extreme pressure, it is hard to put on an act for others.

If you really want to know yourself, think back to how you responded when one of the kids dropped a glass and it broke. How do you react when someone calls you a name? How do you behave when your morning is filled with one little thing going wrong after another? Those times of stress reveal who you really are instead of who you pretend to be.

We like to think that we are generous—but when money is tight, so is our fist. We like to think that we are patient—but when time is short, so is our temper. We like to think that we are kind—but when someone hurts us, our first impulse is to spread that hurt around. I wonder if God sometimes allows stress into our lives to strip away our delusions of how nice and well behaved we are. God is not fooled by our play-acting; He knows good and well what kind of toxic thoughts bubble just beneath the surface, the inner blackness that we all try to hide. But that blackness needs to be exposed so that it can be dealt with. We cannot be forgiven until we realize that we need to be forgiven. And nothing illustrates the need for forgiveness like our behavior when things are going wrong.

Jesus will forgive you for being angry and greedy and bitter. But you must be honest—honest with God and honest with yourself. You need His help in order to be patient, generous and kind during times of stress. You can only have grace under pressure if you have the grace of God living within you.

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