From Joy to Frustration in One Minute

It was 10:51 AM. I was nine minutes from lunch break and a double quarter pounder with cheese and NO bun from McDonald’s!

I don’t eat bread, but even if I did, I’m on a low-carb diet, so I watch what I eat. I check my weight on Mondays and Friday, and this morning’s weigh-in showed I was down another two pounds after the weekend!

At 10:30 AM, my stomach began reminding me that I was hungry. A keto-friendly cookie on my desk was to my right, but I wasn’t giving in. To give in now would mean no afternoon snack. That would mean the snacks in the breakroom would tempt me all afternoon. I couldn’t do it.

These last two and a half months have been about discipline. I’ve been tracking several areas in my life, and I’d been doing great–so I thought.

At 10:52 AM, I noticed movement just outside my office. I’m a loan officer and responsible for helping people that walk in. This morning had been quiet, but now, eight minutes before I was to devour a double quarter pounder, in walks in a man wanting a loan.

Immediately I felt frustrated.

“Come on in,” I said with a smile. “You just about missed me. I was about to leave.”

There it was—a passive-aggressive statement to subtly show this customer how inconvenient he was making my life.

As the frustration built, so did the conviction of the Holy Spirit in my heart. “Is that the fruit of the Spirit?” Then He used my Sunday lesson against me. “Are you allowing Mr. Flesh to win over you?

Even during my attempt to discipline my life spiritually, physically, and mentally, Mr. Flesh had snuck up and revealed the selfishness still in me.

I didn’t end up with lunch until 1:15, but over the next little bit, I met a man that had endured 13 years of cancer and whose wife recently left him. Initially, they gave this man one year to live, but he’s been fighting for 13 years and is now fighting alone.

This failure on my part reminded me of a question someone in my class asked. I’m paraphrasing, but the question centered on our battle with the flesh. Is it a one-time war we win or a daily battle?

The answer is the war is won, but not by us. Jesus defeated Satan, this world, and our flesh. But the battle is a daily battle. Paul said, “I die daily.”

Daily we must die to our selfishness and our desires and claim our new position in Jesus Christ, which is a position of victory!