I’m Annoyed!

Are any of us free from annoyance? As I observe the conflicts in my family it seems that annoyance is at the root of a lot of them. Then I began to wonder what the cause of annoyance was, and was it okay as a Christian to get annoyed. We know! It is only human to get annoyed. But we as Christians are not called to be ‘only human.’ That is what the rest of the world is. We are called to ‘walk worthy of our Lord.’

So what is the cause of annoyance? It should be quite obvious; other people. In James it speaks of ‘fights and quarrels among you’ as being a result of desires that goes unfulfilled, and those desires are self-centered ones. (James 4:1-3) In the same way annoyance can be traced back to a self-centered beginning. Let’s look at some examples.

All of my time at home growing up, I could not stand the sound of smacking. It annoyed ME. It grated on MY nerves. All other people should have my comfort as their first concern, so when they do not think of me first, I get annoyed. What finally cured me of that particular annoyance was when I was spending time with a Muslim family overseas, trying to share of the love of Christ with them. The whole lot of them ate very loudly. To let, (yes, let) the noise bother me was not going to work. I literally did not let myself get annoyed. I sucked it up (quietly, of course). Here, I changed the center of my focus from myself to others. I was no longer annoyed.

Those things that annoy us are be definition small things: a buzzing fly, socks left on the floor, toothpaste tubes squeezed wrongly, long traffic lights, telemarketers calling during dinner, other people sharing their music with the neighborhood.

Heather Jean Torosyan