Stimuli, response.  What categorizes the quality, severity, frequency and amplitude of your response to the signals and catalysts delivered you by God through the world?  Are you highly emotional, prone to fiery retort?  Are you sanguine, choosing to aloofly ignore or compartmentalize the hurt, worry and concern for processing another day?  Do you escape in to alternately crafted justifications freeing yourself from the implications of non responsive behavior?  Are you the owner and simply see what God is showing you through the circumstance accurately realizing it is simply the precise stimuli designed as benchmark for your current faith position?

What is the mirror showing you?  Are you going to God praying for patience?  If you  are you may be misinterpreting the signals through the lens of your own self-critique.  The signs are showing you that you aren’t “good” enough, which is the enemy’s mantra whispered to you perpetually since you’ll listen.  Patience isn’t necessary to learn, but a quality of the Holy Spirit that fills you at indwelling.  So is patience a gift or a product of “works”?  If it is a fruit of the Spirit can you grow it or is it given by and from your faith relationship with God?  Perhaps the need for patience is answered by and through prayer and time spent with God as you begin to reflect him in this world.

What of anger?  What is anger, I mean we should want to know because it was so effective it kept Moses from entering the promise land with those desert wanderers.  Is anger inherently problematic?  If it were God’s Word would not say to get angry but don’t sin.  Again the dangers of anger are in the reaction.  It is simply a signal and emotion but allowed to arouse it may cause “over” reaction leading to sin.  Again is anger best dealt with by self-help or continued attempt at capturing ones anger. This is just a signal to demonstrate your current faith position and should be taken to the Lord in prayer and supplication allowing His Spirit to make the changes in our psyche.

 The sign or symbol is not inherently sinful or frankly infuriating, frustrating or awe inspiring it is a facet, a reflection of our position in Christ.  Our current understanding or maturity in Christ is found in our reaction to the stimuli.  Should we then cease to react, seeking to present an image of someone unresponsive to the stimuli?  That would be a false reflection wouldn’t it because this again in a compartmentalism technique that simply delays or diffuses the reaction, sometimes amplifying it or transforming it in to an undesirable over reaction at a later time, usually upon an unsuspecting person who becomes recipient.  God inspects the heart, so He knows especially those things which have been concealed.

Should I be depressed having lost my job, place and relationship within short measure?  Maybe, for a moment, but then I ought to take that burden to the Lord and take back His peace, understanding that those circumstances were sent to give me a firm understanding of my position in faith.  The sin and the learning are all found in the reaction.  Which will you seek?  In Jesus Name.