Breaking Point

Why is anger such an easy emotion to express when emotions like love, joy, or kindness are difficult? Is it that we are all born on the edge of pissed off and it only takes a slow driver, wrong number call on your cell phone, or a carwash to push you over the edge? Car wash? I saw on the news today where a mom was washing her car in a carwash when she grabbed her 2 year old daughter and started spraying her with the high pressure carwash hose. Crazy you say but we do not know what we are capable of doing when we live on the edge of pissed.

Have you ever said, “If he/she _____ that one more time, I’m going to _______.” We may not always follow through with the threats but the fact is we do not know what we are capable of when we break. If you are like me your breaking point varies from day to day. I think this raises the level of unpredictability which is fun for those around me. If someone says something that hits me the wrong way Monday, it may not evoke a response but Tuesday, look out. What pushes my buttons may not come close to what pushes yours because our breaking point all vary but there is one person who is good at the whole, “long suffering” thing, That person is God.

I am thankful for scriptures like Psalms 103:8 that say that God is slow to anger. .If God were as quick tempered as I am this world would have been obliterated long ago. People would be randomly blowing up everywhere, limbs flying this way and that. It would look like the first few minutes of Saving Private Ryan all of the time. But the word of God says that He is the opposite of me. God’s secret, the Bible says that God abides in love.

So it is impossible for us to avoid the carwash, traffic, solicitations calls, or what ever pushes our buttons. However, we are still required to walk in love or as I like to call it, walk less pissed off. How do we go about this? To me it seems virtually impossible. In reality it is impossible in our own strength but the key is to live more selfless. How profound. We live our lives looking out for number one. We refuse to let someone get something over on us. We are constantly on guard. We have all known people who are so sweet and kind and we think, Man, I bet they get run over all the time. People probably trample on them because they are too kind. I have said that myself but what is too kind? How can we be too kind? See, when we live a selfless life then life stops becoming about who stole our parking spot, our promotion, or our car.

Jesus modeled a selfless life for us. Many times Christians think that Jesus simply couldn’t wait to be nailed to that cross and hang there. We think Jesus just skipped right up to the cross. After all, don’t we all want spikes driven with a mallet through our wrists and feet? Scriptures tell us that Jesus struggled with the task. Matthew 26:39 says, Jesus fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me." But Jesus did not stop there. See Jesus lived a selfless life. He continues by saying, "Yet not as I will, but as you will.” At any point He could have called down from heaven and stopped the process. Jesus was not living His life for Himself. He didn’t live here on earth to shop the Green Hills Mall, drive the finest car, and have the iPhone which would have given him the ability to sync all of his contacts with his PC or Mac as well as listen to His voicemail messages in what ever order He wanted.

We must get up ever single day and die to our self. This sounds exciting doesn’t it?
It is only when we stop making this life about us that we are able to live for others.