Frustration

The experience of desire is important, so too the experience of frustration.

Deuteronomy and Mark line up:

We are to love God with all we’ve got and to love others as ourselves.

Ancient languages have different words for love:

Emotional love, erotic love, familial love, friendly love and sacrificial love.

All are important. It is critical that we not suppress or repress our desires at any stage of our lives:

If we do, our hearts will turn into stone, rendering love impossible. What a disaster that would be.

With experience we come to realise that no person, and certainly no thing, will placate our deepest desires:

That’s why the experience of frustration is so important.

Frustration is telling us that only God can fulfill – and surpass – our desires. Only God.

We love a cup of coffee, we desire it and when we drink it, we experience joy. All very good and well, but it falls short of the supreme joy that God is calling us to.

We fall in love, but soon experience the weakness and inadequacy of the other.

The frustration is not telling us to abandon our lover, but to search for the ultimate lover – God.

Amen.