Personal Development on Frustration

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S.I.T. For the week of 6/3

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God's Voice Speaking through the Frustration My first conscious experience of hearing the voice of Jesus occurred when I was a college student. It grew out of a period of genuine frustration. Bec...

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Generous Lord Jesus, We confess that we

Author

Jacob Traeger

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Scripture

Ephesians 4:32, Hebrews 11:1, Luke 6:38, James 1:18-20, Matthew 9:36

Generous Lord Jesus We confess that we do not receive others with compassion. We object to being interrupted And respond with anger or frustration. We confess that we do not share generously Not trus...

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Lifting the Rock

Author

Source Unknown

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One day a father decided to take his son to play at the local park. The boy quickly gravitated to the sandbox and found himself mesmerized by the colors and textures surrounding him. After a short tim...

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Making Pearls Out of Irritations

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Job 23:10, Psalm 119:71, Hebrews 12:11, 2 Corinthians 4:17, Romans 5:3-5, Isaiah 48:10

Most of us are aware of the fact that pearls come from oysters, but do you know how they are formed? It all begins with an irritation. Some foreign particle, for example, a piece of sand, works its wa...

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Author

Samuel Ullman

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Maturity is the ability to think, speak and act your feelings within the bounds of dignity. The measure of your maturity is how spiritual you become during the midst of your frustrations.

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Author

Charles Kettering

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Scripture

Psalm 37:23-24, Joshua 1:9, 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, Isaiah 40:31, James 1:2-4, Proverbs 24:16

Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.

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The Frustrating Unpredictability of Faith

Author

Don Everts and Doug Schaupp

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Scripture

Galatians 6:9, John 3:8, Ecclesiastes 11:5, Isaiah 55:10-11, John 6:44

Writing about ministering to postmodern skeptics, Don Everts and Doug Schaupp share a helpful insight into the mystery of God's movement: The first lesson they have taught us about the path to f...

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Author

C. S. Lewis

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I think I am beginning to understand why grief feels so much like suspense. It comes from the frustration of so many impulses that have become habitual…I keep on through habit fitting an arrow to the ...

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Author

Tom Nelson

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Scripture

Isaiah 58:6–7, Micah 6:8, Leviticus 19:18, Luke 10:25–37, James 2:14–17, Psalm 82:3–4

[I]f we have compassion without capacity, we have human frustration. If we have capacity without compassion, we have human alienation. If we have compassion and capacity, we have human transformation....

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Waiting is Not Wasting Time: Advent 2024

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Luke 2:29-32

God’s dealings with us are always on the order of what he did with Abram and Sarai. He makes his promises, and he will keep his promises; but just how and when he will keep them is something for which...

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Good Friday | Psalm 22 | Forsaken and Alone

Author

Scott B. Bullock

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Scripture

Psalm 22:

Reflection The television series Alone follows ten individuals who are left to fend for themselves and by themselves in the wilderness. Now, these aren’t everyday individuals plucked from Main St...

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God—Father, Son and Spirit; You are a

Author

Richard Herman

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Scripture

Acts 4:32-35, Luke 10:25-37, Matthew 14:13-21, 1 Kings 17:8-16, Exodus 16:1-36, John 6:35, 2 Corinthians 1:3-5

God—Father, Son and Spirit; You are a God of compassion and love. Like the Israelites in the wilderness, we’ve known Your love, and experienced Your care and provision. Repeatedly You’ve answered our ...

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Blessing Educators and Support Staff at the Start of the School Year

Author

Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia

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Eternal God, Maker of all that is seen and unseen, thank you for the great gifts of learning, growing, and discovering. Thank you for all who are standing here today, and for the millions more who’ve ...

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Lord, You answer our pleas for help.

Author

Memorial Drive Presbyterian Church

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Lord, You answer our pleas for help. You draw near to us when we are hurting; You save us when we are crushed by life. Your Psalmists declare it on every page. Yet we often feel abandoned and alone. W...

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God, you call us to prayer. Throughout

Author

Ellen R. Dawson

Keywords

Scripture

Exodus 2:23-25, 1 Samuel 1:10-11, 1 Kings 3:9-12, Acts 4:29-31, Luke 7:37-38, Exodus 3:7-10, Esther 4:16

God, you call us to prayer. Throughout the Scriptures, we read about your people praying. The Israelites cried out for you to rescue them from slavery. You sent them Moses. Hannah wept, asking you t...

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Emotions are Divine: Why Pastors Need Biblical Permission to Feel

Author

David Lamb

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Scripture

John 11:35, Psalm 5:5, Psalm 6:1, Psalm 78:58, Psalm 78:40, Psalm 18:19, Psalm 25:6, Psalm 5:7, Exodus 20:5, Exodus 22:23, Isaiah 15:5, Luke 15:null, Genesis 23:2, Genesis 42:24, 1 Samuel 1:10, 2 Samuel 1:11-12, 2 Kings 8:11-12, 2 Kings 22:18-20, Mark 14:72, John 20:11, Acts 20:37, Revelation 5:4

When the Professor Weeps: A Personal Story About ten years ago, I was teaching a course on the psalms for my seminary students in the midst of a personal health crisis. It wasn’t in my notes, but I ...

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Slinging Chow and Fruitless Trees

Author

Hannah C. Hall

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An empty-nester friend of mine was recently reflecting on the long days at home with a growing family. “You just gotta keep slinging chow,” she said with a laugh. I laughed too . . . but not quite as ...

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10 Great Quotes from How to Lead... by Clay Scroggins

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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How to Lead Without Being in Charge: Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority came out just about a year ago, so for my timing, I'm actually a bit ahead having just finished it. It is really...

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The Fear Dance and Responsibility

Author

Gary Smalley

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Responsibility

My son Michael and his wife, Amy, also have been on the dance floor with their Fear Dance. And their reactions have not always been pretty. One day Michael came home with a new cell phone and plan—abo...

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Wheelbarrows

Author

Os Guinness

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Distraction

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev used to tell of a time when there was a wave of petty theft in the Soviet Union. To curtail this the authorities put up guards around the factories. At one timber works...

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Whose the Fairest of Them All?

Author

Craig Detweiler

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Scripture

Galatians 6:4-5, 2 Corinthians 10:12, James 3:16, Proverbs 14:30, Galatians 1:10

In Disney’s Snow White, when the wicked witch stares in the mirror, she asks a basic question: “Who’s the fairest of them all?” It is a natural, human tendency to measure ourselves against others. But...

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Blocked Doors

Author

Max Lucado

Keywords

Challenges

Scripture

Matthew 7:7, Isaiah 43:19, Romans 8:28, Psalm 37:23-24, Proverbs 16:9

I came home the other day to a house of blocked doors. Not just shut doors, closed doors, or locked doors. Blocked doors. Blame them on Molly, our nine-year-old, ninety-pound golden retriever, who, on...

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A Sign that Something is Wrong

Author

Caroline Leaf

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Scripture

Matthew 11:28-30, Psalm 34:18, Ephesians 4:26-27, Proverbs 3:5-6, James 1:2-4

Anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress are all ways of describing natural human responses to adversity and the experiences of life. And we all face adversity in many different ways: challengin...

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Author

David Foster Wallace

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Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default-settings. They're the kind of worship you just grad...

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Choosing Gratitude Makes You Happier and Healthier

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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While it might seem obvious in retrospect, one of the latest discoveries in the psychology of happiness has to do with gratitude. Multiple studies have shown a positive correlation between gratitude a...

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How we Deal with the Desert

Author

Bianca Juarez Olthoff

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Scripture

Proverbs 3:5-6, 2 Corinthians 12:9, Hosea 2:14, Isaiah 43:19, Psalm 63:1, Matthew 4:1, Deuteronomy 8:2

We all go through desert seasons and have the opportunity to determine how we will respond. The cyclical frustrations I faced in regard to my desire for control, fear, and the longing to feel chosen w...

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Author

Ronald A. Heifetz, Marty Linsky, Alexander Grashow

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You stay alive in the practice of leadership by reducing the extent to which you become the target of people’s frustrations. The best way to stay out of range is to think constantly about giving the w...

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Author

Arlene Unger

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Mess creates stress.

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Author

George Eliot

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Iteration, like friction, is likely to generate heat instead of progress.

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Author

John Ortberg

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Failure

Failure is not an event, but rather a judgment about an event. Failure is not something that happens to us or a label we attach to things. It is a way we think about outcomes.

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