Irritations
This morning as I began working, I noticed a problem with my keyboard. Every time I struck a key or hit the space bar there was an annoying shake and rattle beneath my keyboard. It had not been that way on Friday when I left the office, so I moved the keyboard around to see if something had gotten under it, but nothing was there. I checked to see if the feet were in the correct position and locked in place, they were all right.
So back to typing I went thinking it would just go away, however after a few more irritating minutes, I was getting exasperated and began searching for the problem once again. This time I flipped the keyboard over and noticed that one of the 3 tiny little rubber feet was missing. A piece no larger than a quarter of an inch was making my life miserable. The cleaning people must have swept it away when they were dusting my desk, because it was no where to be found.
Why do we let the small things affect us so much? No parking spaces, weather not to our liking, funny looks from someone, mosquito bites, weeds in our garden—you get the idea. Irritations can spoil our whole day if we let them.
Maybe that’s why God gave us the example of the pearl--an object of beauty and value that is produced through irritations. As we all know pearls are the result of a grain of sand or other particle or parasite that gets into the shell of a mollusk. The oyster or other mollusk protects itself from the irritation and puts layer upon layer of calcium carbonate over it eventually forming a beautiful lustrous pearl of great worth.
My question to you would be: Can you turn the irritations in your life into things of beauty? Do you have to let them distract you and ruin your day or even your whole life? Or could you instead use them as a reminder to be thankful for what you do have? Maybe you could use them to pray for those people that you know who are dealing with real struggles. Perhaps another possibility is to make an attitude adjustment and change what we are thinking about, just like scripture says.
Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
What our focus is will ultimately determine how we deal with irritations in life. So that tiny little rubber piece missing from under my keyboard was not going to ruin my morning, my day or my week. Instead I used it as an opportunity to thank God for my job and then quickly rearranged the remaining keyboard tips, so that the rattling and shaking disappeared and I was able to return to work once more without the irritation.
Comments