Turnaround Time

Galatians 5:24-25 (NKJV)

“And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”

I used to think I was a pretty patient person. It didn’t bother me to wait for things. All things end up happening at the right time, don’t they? I think most of us are pretty content to let things happen as they do… until it really matters to us.

Kind of like when we’re in traffic. If we leave in plenty of time for an event for which we have mediocre anticipation, a little extra congestion on the road doesn’t bother us much because we know we will arrive close enough to “on time”. It is when we are running late for a special event, and extra cars are in our way, that we lose our patience and sometimes our temper. So it’s not that we normally have great patience, it is that we have different levels of desire for different things. In the traffic instance, when we care, interruptions irritate us. Are we mad at ourselves because we didn’t leave early enough, mad at others because they’re in the way, mad at the event planners who scheduled it at such a poor time or in such a difficult location, mad at God for letting us get ourselves into such a mess, or is it “all of the above”?  It all equals out to – we are just mad.

Being mad in traffic is one thing, being overcome by other emotions that impact the deeper aspects of our lives is something else. Some of us have spent years in a world of bitterness, hurt, disappointment, or denial. Some of us have shortened it to weeks or months. How quickly can we adjust course? Let’s make it our goal to identify the real issue at hand and change our response into one that pleases God. Let’s not allow our emotions to rule who we are and how we live.

Emotions are normal for us but we must learn to manage them to the glory of God. Fortunately, our emotions help us understand the things that matter most to us. Again, we don’t get mad if we don’t care. So let’s thank God for revealing the things that really matter to us. Let’s have the hard conversation regarding our opinion of His job performance. Let’s humble ourselves and submit to His way, His preferences and His plan. Let’s ask for His help. None of us are absent of trouble, disappointment, pain or the emotions that come with all of those. The Bible says it rains on the just and unjust. It says there is nothing new under the sun. The question is, how quickly will we recognize our condition and how readily will we turn away from those raw emotions and turn to God.

How quickly can we renounce the lie that says God isn’t enough, doesn’t know what He’s doing, or doesn’t care? How quickly can we remember He is a loving, caring, kind and good God? How quickly can we choose the better path? We must choose because swift action involves timing that will likely find our emotions and attitudes at their peak. It will require an act of the will. There is no time to let emotions gradually die down; no time to let them simmer. We don’t give them time to take root. We turn over the control of our reactions and emotions to God. We listen and learn lessons about ourselves that we can best learn in those moments. Lessons we would likely not learn unless we have those moments. Lessons that we will hopefully remember the next time those same emotions rise.

How we respond in hard times matters. As we grow, we not only learn how to respond but we learn to respond more quickly. It is a learning process that I’m sure we never outgrow. There is always going to be something that raises our blood pressure and we need to be able to temper things correctly and quickly. It is important. So the question we need to ask ourselves after each raise in temperature is this … what is my turnaround time?

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