You know what God is trying to teach me right now? You can't have the Spirit with you when you're angry. That's why I'm not getting much out of Pathway and it's why I can't blog about something I want to blog about this morning: because they're frustrating me and making me angry.
But actually, can anything literally make a person angry, or does the person still have some control over how they feel? I don't think anything can force us to assume a certain emotional state, but at the same time, it's really hard not to feel certain ways in some situations. If someone you really love died, it'd be hard not to feel sad about it. If you're trying to blog about feeling frustrated, but the computer you're using to share your feelings keeps crashing, it'd be hard not to feel frustrated about that. I'm sure that I could force myself to feel peaceful and happy, despite the fact that everything is frustrating me, but I don't have a strong enough will-power, and that's really frustrating, too.
Am I allowed to feel frustrated and upset and angry sometimes? Is that okay? Or is it a sin to have such negative emotions? In School Thy Feelings, O My Brother, President Monson said "The Apostle Paul asks in Ephesians, chapter 4, verse 26 of the Joseph Smith Translation: 'Can ye be angry, and not sin?'" but I can't remember if he ever answered that question. Maybe the answer is 'yes.' Maybe a person can be upset and even angry sometimes without offending God. But then President Monson said this: "I ask, is it possible to feel the Spirit of our Heavenly Father when we are angry? I know of no instance where such would be the case."
So I guess I need to overcome my feelings of frustration and anger, no matter how justified I think they may be. It won't always be easy, but if I can't have the Spirit with me when I'm frustrated, I'm going to have to learn how to deal with that feeling and overcome it.
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The Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.
--Reinhold Niebuhr
I don't if you (or anyone) completely self-control your feelings. I think we usually need God's help to work a change of heart or feeling. Which is frustrating because we often don't feel very prayerful at those times.
“If you don't feel like praying, pray until you do!” ― Brigham Young
There are things we can do to help school our feelings when irritated or frustrated. When you are frustrated, it's good to try to understand what is really frustrating you. You can write it out or you can talk it out with a trusted person. And always best to talk it out with God. "I am so frustrated with..!" Why? What about it frustrates you? Try to go back as far as you can to the real starting point of the frustration, not just the thing you had that thought about.
Ask yourself how important it is. Does it really matter or can you let it go? What can you DO to make things better? Learn to pray the Serenity Prayer. Count your blessings - some of which may even come from whatever is frustrating you.
Sometimes even though whatever it is is legitimately not good, and there is pretty much nothing you can do to change it, we just have to choose to be happy anyway despite that irritation. Don't let it be the focus of your life no matter how bad it is. Look for the good things in your life even the little ones, maybe especially the little things. It's that counting your blessings and trusting God thing again.
I suppose it's a sin to persist in and feed those feelings. Because it hurts you and makes you feel terrible. Anything that we do that hurts one of God's children is probably a sin, eh? It is a repentable sin.
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