When We Feel Frustrated – Dr. Charles Stanley

There is a high cost to pay to live in constant frustration: broken relationships, unsatisfying jobs, or maybe even bad health. Dr. Stanley shows how the real source of irritation comes from within. God is ready to help you identify and deal with it when you ask Him. Learn how to let Christ replace your anxiety with His peace.

Our man who sent this studying the scriptures to find out if this is true, if that’s true, he can miss the whole point.
When a man is studying the word of god and being sustained by as a disciple, he moves to a point of obedience.
A true disciple is searching the word of god for the principles of god to make application in his life that he might become more like god.
In touch, the teaching ministry of Doctor Charles Stanley, reaching the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ, next on in touch when we feel frustrated.
Sometimes without warning you and I, find ourselves stepping into a valley we didn’t ask for, and we can’t do anything about.
And all and times the instant response within us is frustration, something we cannot control, something we cannot change, something we can do absolutely nothing about.
And I will just say to you today that walking in that valley oftentimes is a very frustrating situation.
And sometimes we walk in at a long time, and then all of a sudden, something happens.
And I wanna say to you today before I preach this message that I know what it means to be frustrated.
I know what it means to feel helpless.
And not knowing which way to turn next, and then I can tell you today that something can happen in your heart that quietens your spirit, gives you a peace that passes all human understanding, gives you a joy that is absolutely unspeakable, and you wonder how god can make your heart so peaceful when your circumstances have not changed.
That is the grace of god. And I wanna tell you something else.
In the midst of those times of frustration and anxiety we go through, one of god’s primary goals is to unveil just how loving and sweet and kind and gentle and faithful and reliable and dependable he is.
And I can say to you today that somewhere back Yanda months ago, all that frustration left me.
And there came a peace and a joy and a contentment that I cannot explain to you nor can I tell you how to get it?
You know why? I can’t tell you how to get it because it’s something that god gives.
I can tell you If you’ll do a couple of things that you’ll set yourself up for god to give you the greatest sense of contentment, in the greatest turmoil of frustration.
Now the title of this message today is part of our series, the source of our strength when feeling frustrated.
And I want you to turn, if you will, to Isaiah chapter 14.
Look if you will, at this one verse, he says in verse 27, for the lord of host, has planned who can frustrate it, that is who can frustrate his plans.
And as for his stretched out hand, who can turn it back?
I want you to think about this for a moment. Who can who can who can move sovereignty?
He has sovereign god who’s in absolute control of all things. Who move him, shove him, push him?
Who can pull him and knock him around?
If you are one of those believers who thinks and feels that you’re a victim of the circumstances of other people and your circumstances, then you go live in frustration all your life, not knowing how to respond and what to do.
But once you come to grips, with who god really and truly is and begin to relate to him on the basis of who he is, not maybe some erroneous thinking about him, you’ll be amazed at what happens to your life.
Now when I think about frustration, I used to think about the way most people do till I began to realize a different way to think about frustration.
And let me explain what it is, first of all. Frustration is that feeling that I am being hindered.
There’s a barrier between me and what I want to accomplish or achieve where I want to get, where I want to go to.
Something I want to accomplish over here. It may be in a relationship with someone.
It may be something in your business. It may be something mechanical.
In fact, you can feel frustrated about about persons, about your pet dog who won’t come and you keep on calling him, or you can feel frustrated about lots of things.
But frustration, it says something is holding me back. Something’s clipped my wings.
I can’t do what I want to do. And so we want to do it. We have a goal.
We have we have a desire, and somehow there’s something that that keeps holding us back.
Sometimes we know what it is. Sometimes we do not. No.
First thing I think we need to look at is this. That frustration isn’t an external thing.
In other words, that person or that thing of this situation’s circumstance can’t frustrate me unless I allow it.
So frustration has its root on the inside of me, not on the outside.
It is not something on the outside.
Now, normally, we wanna look for somebody to blame, uh, some circumstance that we wanna change if out of this or if out of that, if that would change.
He would change. She would change. This would change.
If I had this, that if this hadn’t happened, if I felt this way, if I had good health, we can think of a lot of things in life that we would like to change.
But you see, frustration is not the result of all of that.
Those things in life or persons, the circumstances and situations trigger something that is already in us.
So it’s probably one of about 3 things.
Sometimes it is the inability of a person to accept themselves the way god made them.
Example, here’s the person who says, you know, no matter what I’ll do in life, I will never look any better.
People dissatisfied the way they look, dissatisfied with their talents and their gifts in life.
They look at other people and say, well, he can do that, and she can do this.
And they can have that, and she can have this. And those families can have these things, and we can’t.
This is just my lot in life.
I don’t like it, and so they live in a state of frustration that somehow, somehow in life, god’s dealt them a bad deal, and either, uh, he forgot something, or he missed out.
He doesn’t love them as much, and so they just live with this.
Friend god never intended you to live with that kind of frustration. He doesn’t make any mistakes.
Doesn’t do everything the way you and I would do it. Uh, he doesn’t do anything.
He doesn’t do everything the way what we want him to do, but there is a of frustration because I don’t like my circumstance, and I don’t like the way I am.
Well, There’s a second reason I think there’s a root cause of it, and that is the reluctance to deal with things in the past.
And I think in many people’s lives, one of the primary sources root causes of their level of with this low, medium, or high level of frustration is they won’t deal with things in the past.
It may be something backyard of their childhood. It may be some mistake that they’ve made.
Some sin that they committed, uh, some real error and judgment that brought about a lot of a heartache and suffering, and and pain.
And so what happens is they they just haven’t faced stuff with it.
And so they wanna run from it, and so they’ll run all of their life trying to run from something that happened years years ago.
Instead of dealing with it, they keep on running from it, or maybe they can’t even identify what it is.
They just they just know that something backyard is not right.
And sometimes it’s some parent parental relationship, sometimes it’s someone having to deal with a suicide of a friend as we mentioned before.
There there are lots of things back there. So some people run. They ignore them. They deny them.
They live in a state of denial. They just refuse to face it. Everybody else is wrong.
There’s something wrong with everybody else, but not me, of course.
And so instead of facing up to something back there that has made a real indelible impression upon them, instead of facing up to it, they just sort of live with it.
And so the easiest thing to do is to blame him, her, it, to blame circumstance, if I had this, if I had that Instead of dealing with the past, that’s what they do.
Well, that doesn’t work either. A third root cause of frustration is our refusal to deal with what we know is not the will of god for our life at the present time.
It’s one thing to be frustrated with what how we thank god made us about what’s happened in the past, but what are the present thing?
And there are many people who live in a state of frustration because they won’t deal when with a present day attitude or habit in their life.
You see, if a person is bitter or resentful or hostile or unforgiving, isn’t making them as what you do.
You will never, never, never escape frustration because first of all, god’s not gonna allow you to do it.
And secondly, a bitter spirit, resentful hostility, and anger, an un Christ like spirit, an ungodly spirit towards someone else, is gonna create frustration.
Because you’re always having to do what, defend yourself, prove that they’re wrong, you’re right there wrong, you’re right there wrong, you’re right there wrong, every time you see them, or if it’s some situation or maybe geographically, whatever it might be.
And so people do all kind of things. And here’s what’s happening there.
Multitudes of people people who sit in church Sunday after Sunday, who come to church uptight, who stay there uptight, who leave uptight, who go home and live all week long, uptight, and come back next week, uptight.
They’ve heard the gospel. They say, yes. I do believe. Yes.
Oh, I believe the Bible from couple to couple. I even believe the maps. I believe it all.
Believe every part of it. And yet, what are they doing? They’re living just like this.
They’re frustrated with life. Well, what would you change? Well, I’d change several things. Well, like what?
Well, I change where I live, what I drive, where, uh, uh, what I wear. I change my geographical location.
I change uh, my kids, if I my kids had just changed, I changed my finances.
I changed a lot of things I changed. Then what? Well, then I’d be happy. Oh, is that right? Yeah.
You know what happens? That doesn’t make you happy because happiness is not the result of circumstances.
Happiness is is the result of the condition of the heart.
There are people who have nothing who are far happier than people who have everything.
There are people who are known by almost no one who are happy than people who are known by everyone, can name any and every circumstance in life.
None of those things have to do with happiness and peace and joy. And so what happens?
And a while, they get frustrated. They continue to be frustrated.
They think, well, it must be something wrong with me.
So one form of frustration that is the result of our own doings is very exhausting, penalizing, and very oftentimes costly in many ways of our life.
But then I’m grateful that I don’t have to stop there to say that there’s another form of frustration that is exciting You say, well, how in the world can anything that treats you like that be exciting?
Well, just listen. Because there is a form of, uh, of it that is exciting.
I want you to look back at this 27th verse for a moment.
I just want us to read it again, and I want us to read it several times, but look at this.
He says, for the lord of hosts, has planned, and who can frustrate it.
And as for his stretched out of hand, who can turn it back?
What he’s referring to in this passage is the Assyrians were going to attack, uh, uh, Israel, and they later on in this book, surrounded the city of Jerusalem, And, I mean, they absolutely didn’t have a ghost of a chance of survival.
Next morning, Israelites woke up. What happened?
1000 and 1000 and 1000 and 1000 and 1000 of dead Assyrians.
God took care of him during the night. What does he say in this passage?
The lord of host is plan who can frustrate it.
And as for his stretched out hand, he says, who can turn it back?
Now There are periods of frustration in that life that have nothing to do with sin or mistakes necessarily.
And so there’s a difference in that kind of frustration and the kind we’ve been talking about.
And here’s what you’ll discover when you when you notice that.
First of all, it’ll be a frustration that you’re not you don’t feel driven to prove something.
You’re not blaming someone.
You can’t put your finger on a circumstance that you that you really think if I change that, uh, everything will be different.
And so that frustration oftentimes comes instantly without any warning.
Sometimes it comes as a process over a period of time.
And somehow you cannot identify its cause.
You see, most of the time when when it’s something that that’s a result of something inside of us that’s going on that we are responsible for, man, we got a whole lot of things we can put our finger on.
But when it’s god’s frustration, you can’t put your finger on it.
You look around and you say, well, no, it’s not that. It’s not him. It’s not her. It’s not them.
It’s not these things. It’s not what I don’t have. It’s not what I have.
And what you discover is this, once you make the move that god has in mind for you, what happens is the frustration’s over.
It’s gone. It just disappears. Now what we have to ask is this, and that is, what is god’s purpose?
Why why would he frustrate us? That is why would he suddenly put up a little barrier?
It won’t let us move. Why does he sort of stop us?
Why why would he not let things keep moving because he’s got something in mind?
Now, one of his primary purposes is to to to bring us to a deeper relationship with him and our character.
So what does he do? He begins this frustration.
Let me explain a little bit how it works, and then we’ll talk about some, uh, some examples of it.
There’s this sense of restlessness. That comes. And you feel a little frustrated.
Well, I, you know, I don’t I don’t know what’s going on. You can’t put your finger on it.
I say you can’t blame nothing. You can’t identify. And so saying, what what’s going on?
One of the purposes that god begins to bring about frustration and this restlessness within us, he wants to get our attention about something about our life.
It’s probably something that you and I never thought about never considered never never gave it any thought.
And so we think, well, you know, I must be sick. Give me a couple of buffering.
I mean, do something. And what it is, it is a restlessness that you can’t that you can’t put your finger on.
You just feel it. Now if you’re one of those persons who runs to the prescription by every time you have a bad feeling, you’re gonna be in real trouble.
And the trouble is you’re gonna miss god. Because oftentimes he sends restlessness to bring us to focus.
Now listen. Think about this now.
If it is something that you and I have not thought about, Most of the time, god doesn’t say, there it is.
But he he brings this restlessness, this sense of frustration. Why you know, what what’s happening?
Little by little, he begins to move us in his direction. And it is a time.
It is a process that goes on within us.
Now if I’m unwilling, Or if I don’t realize how god operates, I will find some reason to run or to ignore or to misinterpret what’s happening.
And I’ll give credit to my physical body or to someone else or something.
I’ll I’ll find something to blame it on, what I want you to see is that some frustration is divinely sent, and his purpose is to deal with an area we have not thought about dealing with before, and so it takes time to listen.
Well, I remember The first time this ever became a reality to me.
Um, my wife and I finished 2 years of seminary. We finished up the 2nd year.
And, We were going to Fresno, California to preach, and I was gonna preach that summons she was gonna sing.
That was gonna give us some experience, and I’d never been a pastor, except one summer.
And so she’s gonna lead the quietest little church. They didn’t have a pastor.
So we’re just gonna go ahead and fit in for 3 months. And we had it all worked out.
Everything’s just fine. I can remember just like it would today.
Saturday morning, I got up early that morning and began to pray, and all of a sudden, with no warning, I remember how frustrated I felt. I thought, what’s going on?
It’s like I was churning. Nothing was wrong. School was about out. Grades were fine. She was doing fine.
Our relationship was absolutely wonderful, blissful, thought, what’s going on, god? I couldn’t find anything to blame anything on.
I thought, uh, oh, what’s going on?
So when she finally got up and we I said, I want us to pray. Something’s not right.
Said, what is it? I said, well, I don’t know, but, uh, and, uh, we hadn’t been married very long.
And so, um, when I’d come up with something like that, she didn’t quite understand that.
So I was like, I don’t know what it is, but I’m telling we gotta find out.
You know, we prayed all morning. We prayed to almost around 6 o’clock in the evening all day long.
About that time, we concluded those were airplanes. They weren’t god’s plans.
Now suppose I’d have gotten up in felt bedness, I need to go out and walk a a eat a big breakfast or take a buffer into something.
Number is, let’s let’s go let’s just go do something. You know, what are we to miss?
We’d have missed the will of god. It’s what we’d have missed. We’d have missed the will of god.
Death Let me show you how we’d have missed it. We’d have missed
it all the way around because surprising to us, and it was it was it was such a wonderful thing that
Then we had to fight.
God, you couldn’t be saying this. That’s that sounds too good and too easy. That that was me.
We ended up spending 3 months up at Lake Lauren, North Carolina, taking it easy.
If you can imagine that useful, that doesn’t sound very spiritual. I know it doesn’t.
But you see, that’s the flesh.
That’s where I got in one of this because about the last week we were up there, out in the lake, fishing, this man came down.
He said, call me. He says, your name’s Charles then. I said, yeah. He said, you’re a seminar student.
I said, yeah. He said, I wanna talk to you. He came over.
He said, past it’s gonna be gone 2 weeks. Well, you preaching a church. I said, well, sure.
So to make a long story short, I preached up there, they called me.
I was passed to that church and taught in the Bible Institute. But suppose we just said, nope.
We’re going to Fresno, no no matter what, that’s what god said. We’re going.
Out of and out of the world god.
And I can look back and see how step by step in my life began.
If I had made that mistake, I would never have been gotten to Fruitland, I’d have never gotten to these places I’ve been in life.
For the simple reason, it wouldn’t have worked out that way.
The people, the person I would never have met who finally brought me to Miami, Bartow, all those places.
It was the fact that god frustrated me so badly that morning I couldn’t do a thing but stay on my face till I found out what he was talking about.
Now you I’m not a pastor. It has nothing to do with being a pastor.
It has to do with what is the will of god for your life. Listen.
He loves you just much as he loves me.
And he’s just as interested in your job and your family and your work and your children and your things and your goals and your ideals in life as he is me or anyone else.
All he wants is is when he starts rustling up your nest and getting you frustrated, instead of blaming, looking somewhere else, first of all, look inside and ask guys if there’s something he wants to deal with.
And secondly, look to him and say, lord, you trying to say something to me?
Look, at least give him a chance.
Don’t go running off somewhere or blaming someone else or trying to change your circumstance.
It may be that god is a god is just loving you.
And you see, every single time god has ever moved my life in either what I believe or where I was, it has always been to my great great, great benefit.
You know why? Because he’s a loving father. He’s not gonna act any other way than love.
That’s the only way god knows how to act. He said, what about his wrath?
Even in his wrath, he’s what he’s he’s expressing love?
Because if he didn’t if if if he didn’t condemn, and judge sin, all of us would be so reckless.
We wouldn’t be fit to live. And so what does he do? That’s an expression of his love.
It’s a warning to us. And so when you think about how he works, and he says in his passage, the lord of host is planning who can frustrate it.
His outstretched hand, who can turn it back. Listen to me.
God god is so in control of your life and my life.
We don’t have to worry about what listen.
We don’t have to worry about what people do to us or circumstances. We belong to him.
If we’re listening to him, and he sends these frustrations into our life, don’t look to somebody to blame.
Look to him and say, god, You’re trying to say something to me.
Do you wanna change something about my thinking, my attitude, my actions, my habits?
Do you wanna change where I am, what I’m doing, you wanna change my major?
Do you wanna change my occupation? Do you wanna change my vocation? What are you doing, god?
He loves that. You know what’ll happen?
That frustration will turn to the most wonderful excitement that you know that god is up to something now.
The two things Sometimes it’s a process, and the process sometimes is sort of prolonged.
You think, god, what are you waiting for? Come on. Just just let me have it.
Tell me what it is. No. He he’s he’s got his own timetable.
And then sometimes you know you’re getting close. You know you’re getting close, but you know what?
You can’t make him This is hard for me to accept some time. You listen.
You can’t make him tell you one second quicker than he intends to. Now listen to me carefully.
More times than not, what he’s trying to do is gonna hit you when you’re not even thinking about anything like it.
All of a sudden, there it is.
You think, well, where did that come from?
It came from that long process of listening, waiting, sifting, sanding, working, frustration, anxiety, having pity parties, and all the other things that we do in the process of having god speak to us.
Now you say, okay. I got you.
What do I have to do to make all of us a reality?
I want you to listen very, very careful this is the end.
No matter what’s happening, I need to acknowledge this.
Father, I may not be worth 2¢ in my own thinking.
I may so be so messed up and so much sin in my life, and I’ve I’ve been so fouled up god and may feel that way.
Lord, I know you love anyway. I have to listen.
If you don’t begin with acknowledging god’s love’s not gonna work now, listen to me.
God, I know you love me. I don’t feel very lovable.
I don’t think I love you very much, not according to my actions and habits, and god, but I know you love me.
Secondly, I’m gonna trust you.
And listen to this. He’s a sovereign god has all power.
He knows all of my weaknesses and prayerless.
He knows exactly where he wants to get me and how to get me there.
I don’t understand what’s going on.
God, if it’s something you’re changing about me, something you wanna change direction, I’m gonna trust you.
I’m gonna have to trust you. I can’t do this for myself.
Trusting him means that I’m just depending and relying and surrendering myself to him, to do in me, and for me, and through me, and to me.
Whatever he chooses because he has the power to do it.
He can change anything about me or is the change? He can put me somewhere.
I can never put myself. That’s why I wanna underestimate god.
Don’t say, oh, I could never do. They don’t underestimate him. You know what it is?
It’s coming to the conclusion that this wonderful, loving father loves you and me with all of his heart.
And secondly, all he wants me to do is to trust him And if I trust him, I just surrender my life to him and just say, lord, Here I am.
You just do whatever you wanna do. Now listen to me.
I don’t care what you’re going through.
I don’t care how deep, dark, frustrating, how much turmoil, heartache, suffering.
I don’t care what you’re going through. I can tell you with all of my heart.
Once you acknowledge his wonderful fatherly love for you.
And you say, lord, Because I know you’re a wonderful, loving father who’s always doing the right thing and the good thing, I’m just gonna trust you.
It’s what happens. The frustration disappears. The peace rolls in.
The quietness of your spirit overwhelms you. There is a joy There is a sense of contentment.
There’s a sense of absolute peace because you know what?
You know, that god is gonna shelter you in every storm. He’s gonna be your shield from every attack.
He’s gonna be your wisdom for all decisions. He’s gonna be everything you need. No matter what.
And in his wisdom, he knows what he needs to change.
And so if I just say, you’re free to change anything about me you want to change.
I can tell you this with all of my heart. I wish I knew how to tell you.
You wouldn’t swap the change for anything you have ever done for yourself.
That’s the kind of god he is. So all frustration is not bad.
The key is that I look to him and trust him and surrender to his will and his way, and whatever he sends, and knowing my heart, it’s gonna turn out for my good no matter what, you know, why?
Because who can frustrate god? Nobody.