Magdy Samuel

Chapter 3: 3
The negative effects of frustration (1)

 Frustration has an immensely negative impact on people:-
Psychologically              Physically              Spiritually

That’s what is declared by the gospel as we observed previously.
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick” (Proverbs 13:12)

Frustration is considered to be one of the most dangerous psychological feelings. It leads us to encounter failure, desperation, hardship and depression. When the feeling of frustration and desperation possess us, it makes us lose the desire and strength to practice and enjoy our daily life and even reflects on our health which could weaken our spiritual existence.
How was Sarah affected by frustration? And what did she lose as a result of that feeling? What did she miss out on? That will be our meditation together, praying to the Lord to protect us and heal us from any frustration in our life.

First: Doubting in God’s promises
“The LORD has kept me from having children.” (Genesis 16:2)
When the promise is belated and God is patient with us, when we encounter reality that prolongs the waiting, our faith is often weakened and doubt starts penetrating causing frustration. The enemy takes advantage of our frustration making us doubt the goodness and love of God and many questions start coming to mind, such as:

Where is God?? Why did he not interfere? Are we going to wait longer? Will God fulfill His promise to us? Is this promise really from God? Has God changed his intentions towards us? Have we sinned and God prevented the fulfillment of the promise?

When God has visited Abraham and Sara in their tent, he promised them and said: "At the appointed time next year, Sarah will have a son” Sarah laughed to herself”. Failure, doubt and desperation sneaked into her heart, and into her self talk.

That what frustration does to us, it makes us laugh, not of joy and victory but a laugh of doubt, desperation and failure. From the outside, we look happy and joyful while from the inside, we are full of doubt, desperation and failure. We have to rejoice for the joy of the Lord is our strength. Disappointment might shake our trust in the sincerity of God’s promises which, as a result, weakens our fellowship with Him making us lose our joy and spiritual strength.

Dear reader, when frustration dominates you, never doubt the goodness of the Lord but call upon Him and pour out the heart before Him and wait , for all Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame
       
Second: Adopting wrong decisions:
 Sarah has tried to solve her problems or to save what can be saved, to renew hope, and have even half of the promise realized: Abraham having a son without being through her. While she has missed every hope and ability to produce, but Abraham was capable of producing. God’s plan was to end every human hope Abraham and Sarah had, so that He, after that, extends his hand and interfere.

On Sarah’s own way to solve her problem, away from her God, she said to Abraham: Here is my maidservant, sleep with her so that she can bear children for me. Abraham accepted his wife’s proposition not trying to oppose it but has agreed with it, and maybe encouraged it owing to his feeling of frustration himself too.

From there, we can easily see that frustration leads us sometimes to rush and accelerate thus making   wrongly decisions without returning to ask God for his will. This happens to many people during their journey of life.

An answer to a problem from God may be late, so we go towards using twisted methods to solve it. Or we might adopt decisions not in harmony with God’s will as marrying a non- believer to settle a problem.

Sometimes, our dream in obtaining a large house and a luxury car with a high income etc. is delayed, we may resort to dishonest means to accomplish this dream and in the process we might destroy our family and our well- being.

Sometimes and for some reasons, an engagement with the right believer gets late, so, as a result of frustration, we go solve the problem by marrying a non-believer.

When we are unable to achieve marital happiness after praying a lot to have a better understanding and relationship with one’s spouse, we see ourselves taking a wrongly decision of separation or divorce.

Serving God sometimes have late fruitful results, we feel frustrated due to the various problems inside churches and the difficulty in serving there, so we decide to discontinue our service and stay far from the spiritual zone.

Most of the times, frustration drives us to take up wrongly resolutions in our life as was the case with Sarah who has suffered much of it and whose offspring is still enduring same.

Therefore, dear reader:
-When you feel frustrated, do not take a decision, just wait and abate.
-Call upon God, ask for his will and wait until He fulfills His promise.
-It’s better for you to wait for God’s gifts than to go to solve the problem on your own. Because you may take a wrongly decision then harvest a troubled future for what you did.

Magdy Samuel