The Lyre Pine

I want to share with you the lessons taught me by a radiant Christian woman on how to overcome frustration. In case of doubt, let me make clear that the woman concerned was not a thick-skinned individual who cared for nothing and nobody, but rather a highly sensitive person who knew how to turn every test into a testimony.

Here is her prescription for overcoming frustration.

First, realize that Christians aren’t exempt from facing problems. It is true that Christians are exempted from many self-inflicted pains which non-Christians bring on themselves through wrong attitudes, wrong moral choices, wrong behavior, and so on. But apart from this, every Christian is as subject as a non-Christian to accidents, sickness, and even death. Some years ago a plane full of non-Christian Indian seamen crashed into the Alps; a few days later, fifty-eight Christians, fresh from a conference, crashed in the same Alps.

Secondly, fix in your mind that the Christian answer is along the line of using whatever comes—justice or injustice, pain or pleasure, compliment or criticism. Ever heard of a lyre pine? The lyre pine is a pine tree whose top is shaped like a harp, with a number of branches forming the top, instead of one straight branch. It is produced, they say, by a calamity such as a storm or a lightning flash striking off the original top. Frustrated, it then puts up a whole series of tops stretched on a more or less horizontal bar. This, too, can happen to us—if we let it. Calamity can turn dullness into music, a lone top into a lyre.

Further Study

1Pt 1:1-7; 4:12-13; Mt 5:45; Jn 16:33; 2Co 4:17; Rm 5:3

What is the sequence of God’s dealings in our lives?

How is this working out in your life?