It’s Nice To Be Nice – Even When You’re Frustrated

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another;…’ (Romans 12:10)

There are times when we may wake up or get into a situation where we become frustrated with someone or something.  It can be with a spouse or with that over-the-phone representative from the cable company who can’t seem to grasp the importance or the concept of the information you are attempting to relay to them. 

Frustration with patience is good; it’s when the patience wears then that our voices start to go several decibels louder, perhaps several octaves higher, as it is in our human nature to think that perhaps the person who isn’t getting our point will do so if we aid them in hearing it.  If we are in a person-to-person setting, we also begin to use our hands and body language to improve the importance of our point, through gestures or perhaps with an open or closed hand pounding the table.

While there are times appropriate for voices to raise and to use body language to demonstrate the importance of our message (if you are, were, or are going to be a parent – you’ll know that there are such times as these), Jesus wants us, for the most part, to be patient with each other, in demonstrating His love to others.  We see Jesus apparently frustrated with His earthly mother Mary at the wedding ceremony, when she tells Jesus to turn vessels of water into wine (John 2:1-11).  He gives Mary a mild rebuke, questioning her desire to get Him involved in such a trivial matter.  But then, He honors His mother’s request (and honors the 5^th Commandment) and does indeed create the wine – the best wine the banquet leader had tasted.

In the same vein, it is understandable and even predictable we are going to get into frustrating predicaments.  The online world of the internet, in my opinion, exacerbates these frustrations.  Often, we are told to fill out the online form, or go make an appointment on a portal or order a good or service on a webpage, and lo and behold, after you’ve filled out the necessary blocks (some with text) and hit the ‘submit’ button – an error message displays on screen.

We attempt to call their support line, and we first get the automated assistant.  The limited responses of the non-human assistant don’t cover your problem, so you try to get to a real person.  When you do, that person may be in a call center outside the US and speaks broken English with a strong accent that is hard to understand.  Trying to work with that person doesn’t offer the desired solution, so you ask for an American representative, who isn’t available as it is now after hours and you’re told you’ll get a call the next business day.

Hours into the next day, the American representative finally calls, and you have to start from the beginning the explanation of the steps you took leading up to this moment – only to be told that you’ll have to do all those steps again, and again, and one more time before the representative agrees that indeed you are having a problem with their system.  At this point, we all are likely wanting to raise our voice and our pitch, and wave our arms, to have the representative understand your feelings on this matter.

But we have to remember, the representative is only the conduit of the organization for communications.  He or she will not be the ones to actually fix the issue, as they usually will not have the ability or means to do so.  They are the ‘front line’ or face of customer service, and unfortunately we typically end up yelling our frustrations out on them.

It is these times that we need to lean upon the Lord, and ask Him for patience in our time of frustration, to remember the person on the other end of the line is not the one responsible for the frustration we feel.  They are people with families and children, facing similar issues of similar magnitude.  This is when we need to remember Romans 12:10’s instructions; to take the time and be firm but civil in approaching the issue, and ask the person on the other end of line, usually at the end of the conversation, if they need prayer.  In doing this, we are setting an example for them, and perhaps a shining light in a dark day of other frustrated callers.

In our daily interactions among cashiers, wait staff, and service providers; it is similar for them.  When our friends and family do something frustrating towards us, it may be that they are equally frustrated by something – even something we’ve done.  It is better to be firm but soft in our approach to them, to let them know of our frustration but in a way that shows the love of Christ and our willingness to work with them, to both take and make amends with them.

Only in rare circumstances do we need to be demonstrably angry or forceful; a child wanting to touch a hot stove or about to break open the cookie jar may require a loud and firm ‘NO!  Don’t do that!’ in order to recognize the need not to perform that action.  In almost every other case, Jesus wants us to be patient and in frustration be loving and honorable to Him and to others.