I was frustrated last night and I carried that frustration to bed with me.

It was the day that determined the two teams that would go on to the Super Bowl.

My frustration was not with the games or the teams; in fact, both the teams I wanted to win, won.

The first game I watched rather intently, but the second game … well, I was interested; I wanted to see it, but I had watched so much football already that I was a little football weary.

I didn’t want to entirely miss the game, so I turned to multitasking.

Now, I am not a great multitasker; I need to focus on one thing at a time. So when I do a couple of things at the same time, my productivity goes way down.

Yesterday that was okay; I didn’t mind. The game was going to be on all evening; I had time on my hands and just needed a slight distraction, while still being able to follow the action of the game.

There were a couple of multitasking possibilities for such a situation: I could play pool – the TV was right there; all I’d have to do was turn it – or I could fly my new drone around the family room.

… I tried both of these activities and still there were 3 1/2 quarters of football to go.

I then resorted to my go-to TV multitasking standby: my computer. I wanted to make some changes to our church website that I hadn’t gotten to in a long time.

Since I was doing two things at the same time – watching a game and working on the computer – I wasn’t frustrated at first when I ran into problems making the changes I wanted to make.

I knew that I had plenty of time while the game was on, so I just turned my attention to the plays for a few minutes.

As the game neared the end, I really wanted to be at the end of making those web changes … but I still couldn’t figure out how to do them.

Long after the game was over, some show was on TV that I was not one bit interested in, but it provided background noise that kept the frustration from really taking hold of me.

I looked at the time – it was way later than I wanted to be up and working on this! Then the frustration set its hooks into me and I laboured on it a little longer, with a little more angst building inside me.

I finally gave up for the night; frustration had won, but I planned to try another approach the next day.

It was time for bed, but how could I sleep? I was all keyed up, frustrated and not really ready to settle down.

So I put on a movie and let my mind chill out. It worked; it wasn’t long before I started to nod off.

… I had just needed to turn my attention to something else.

Here’s the thing: Frustration captures and controls our thoughts and emotions. If you turn your frustration over to God, and focus your attention on Him instead of your frustration, He will give you relief in mind and emotion. He will also give you a way out or through your frustration.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What kinds of things frustrate you most? Leave your comments below.