Yesterday, I was writing about how God doesn’t expect us to deny human nature. Today I feel like that notion was put to the test. There were many weather changes, so I have been feeling the effects of barometric pressure on my head. Without pain, I felt like my head was slowly being squeezed and it put me in a very bad mood. Along with that, I was feeling pressure at work, too. It reached a climax at a certain point this afternoon.
If I reacted out of fear or anger, I could have lashed out at someone in an unprofessional manner. I could have yelled and screamed or thrown things. I was feeling anxious and upset. I have acted that way in the past. There’s a part of me that has it within me to act that way. It’s just that in the past, when I let anger and fear overtake my life, I always ended up feeling bad. I felt like my life was out of control and I was really scared of what destructive act I would do next if I continued down that same path.
It is within my nature to be an angry fearful soul, but when that’s all I am, then I am not in balance. There’s something wrong and I don’t even want to think about what I would become if I followed a path where I constantly gave into wrath and fear.
Today, when I started to feel bad, I took a step back. I tried to calm down and let myself become centered again. I tried to find a balance. There’s nothing wrong with being upset, angry, or afraid. In the Gospels, there are times when Jesus is all of those. However, He balances those emotions with love, patience, and understanding. He constantly looks to God for guidance and always wants God’s will to be done.
I’m not a saint, but I am not the worst sinner either. I’m just an ordinary human being. When I get upset, it’s only human. I don’t fight my nature. The important part is what I do with it. It isn’t what happens to me in my life, the important part is how I respond to the events of my life. When human nature comes along, do I respond with an unbalanced measure trying to be too holy or too much of this world, or do I try to respond with a balance understanding that this world is full of dualities and that one day I will find a way to transcend them?
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
