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Taylor - Made Irritability

BY LORI TAYLOR

Lately I have been finding myself getting more and more irritated with things. Every time I become irritable I burden myself with the damaging weight of selfishness. Irritability does not stem from righteousness, because it is a selfish response to not getting what we want, our desire. Instead, like a weed, it grows out of selfishness. I tend to become irritated when something I want is being denied.

For example: Let us say I wanted to take a nap, but my husband asked me to help him with something more productive, like the laundry for example. I then become irritated with him for trying to deny my want for a midday snooze. Wanting to take a nap in itself is not a sin, but the irritability I show my husband as my reaction to not getting what I want, is a sin; the sin of not trusting God in all things. Our emotions can either be godly or ungodly and irritability is a form of anger that falls under the ungodly emotions.

Now, let’s say, I’m around somebody else who is irritable. It’s very hard to not feed off their emotion and become irritated as well. Not becoming irritable is hard work. It’s a bad habit that is ingrained in us. As humans, we like to blame our irritability on others. The truth is though, no one is responsible for our actions except ourselves. I have to pause, stop myself and redirect my train of thought back to Christ and what the Bible teaches us about irritability. Jesus didn’t die for our earthly reputation or for the things of this world, but he died for the souls that walk this earth. When I remind myself of that, I realize that my irritation isn’t worth it, and it definitely is not pleasing to God. We are instructed to love our brothers and sisters, and the Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 13 that love is not irritable.

While we can not control what life throws at us, we can control whether we decide to react with irritability or respond with patience and wisdom.

“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” – Hebrews 12: 1&2