I Don’t Deserve This
Sudden anger is linked to pain.
Something rough has happened and yet we can’t stop to recover. There is simply too much to do. Life goes on.
Then something relatively minor happens and we lose it. That’s usually when the thought, “I don’t deserve this,” comes mumbling up.
On the one hand it is possibly a rational thought. Every circumstance is different so I can’t completely say something too sweeping here. For sake of argument let’s say you are facing problems you did not create or choose, except for the fact that every day you decide to take on the day and do the best you can. So it seems in this case to be a pretty rational thought.
The problem is this thought about not deserving something isn’t a useful one.
It sends us down a rabbit hole of regret that life isn’t what we want it to be. We join every crying baby without looking the least bit as adorable as they do. Our inner-child is trying to take over, and in the process, since our inner-adult has permitted this behavior, it means we will suffer the delay of rationality, where solutions reside.
This response to wrong is the seed of anger. It has to do with unfairness or the absence of justice. Righteous anger is a response to injustice suffered by the innocent and powerless. It is resonating with God’s heart of love for his children.
Most anger, however , is not righteous. It comes from a distortion of this pure and important attribute of a Holy God. When I think I don’t deserve something it is because I think I am above it.
Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.
Proverbs 16:32 (ESV)