Big Boy Tantrum

Ahab went into his house vexed and sullen . . .  And he lay down on his bed and turned away his face and would eat no food. 1 Kings 21:4

I recently had a one of those annoying days when I just couldn’t get anything done. I needed to plant grass, but I couldn’t find the grass seed. I needed to mow the lawn but ran out of gas and couldn’t find the gas can. On my way to the gas station, I hit every red light.

Maybe I had not eaten or slept enough, but at the stoplight, as I cursed under my breath, I was pretty sure the guy in front of me intentionally waited when the light turned green, just to annoy me. God, why is nothing going right today? I threw a big boy tantrum.

It was in this state of mind, that I ran into some friends, who informed me of the tragedy they had recently endured. My self-pity crumbled, as I listened. There I was, complaining to God about grass seed and stoplights, while they were looking to God for guidance in their loss.

In today’s passage, Israel’s King Ahab threw a similar tantrum. In the story, Ahab coveted a vineyard near his palace, so he went to its owner to buy it, but the owner refused. King Ahab, unaccustomed to being told no, went home, threw himself on his bed, and refused to eat. His, was a king-sized tantrum.

It is not necessarily wrong to find inconveniences inconvenient. Frustration is natural when the world does not go our way. That however, does not mean that we are right in our response. The solution is not necessarily to tell ourselves that someone always has it worse than us. There are things that should anger and frustrate us. We must learn however, to interrogate our response.

God, am I right in my agitation or am I just being a big boy baby? How do you want me to respond to this? What am I supposed to learn? In looking to God instead of my own will, I usually find that my irritation evaporates into faith.