Frustration and Pride

Now and again frustration visits us. Sometimes we flirt with it. Sometimes it grips us in sharp talons that shrivels our hearts with sorrow, anger, or crabbiness. We see a brother making wrong choices that could lead others astray. We see a sister allowing hurt feelings to distance her from the church. We see the way things NEED to be done and they are not being done that way. We can see SO CLEARLY that the results of these actions will bring sorrow and misery to them! Why can't they see it???

And we want to fix it. Fix it I say! Make it better! But we can't. We don't know how. We can't make people do things, even if they are good for them.

Recently I reread President Ezra Taft Benson's article "Beware of Pride" Ensign, May 1989 (You can find it at www.lds.org go to search, type Pride and Benson) It is a MOST excellent article! I had to call myself to repentance a number of times as I read it. And I learned the source and solution of my frustration! Who was trying to fix the problems? I was. It was my pride that caused me to want to solve the problem or led me to feel it was my responsibility to solve the problem. I was failing to adequately turn to the Lord. I had a lack of trust in Him. This is His Church. These are His People. He loves them vastly more than I ever could. He knows them and he cares for and about them. Indeed, he suffers all their weaknesses, their pains, their sins, their sorrows. He is God. He could fix all things in a flash and save Himself a lot of grief and pain. Why doesn't he?

Why does he allow people, and by extension, Himself to suffer? He tells us in Doctrine and Covenants 122:7-- because it's for our good. We grow and strengthen and progress in ways that are impossible to do without suffering and trials.

The opposite of pride is humility. I need to trust the Lord. I need to trust His way. Yes, I need to do everything I can-- call, visit, counsel, pray, encourage-- and then I need to trust that the Lord's will will be done.

So now, when I feel the fangs of frustration, I hope I will recognize that it is simply pride in a new disguise. I hope I will erase it from my heart and embrace trust in the Lord instead. Ahh. It is so good to feel peace instead.