GREAT THINGS ENTERPRISE
CLAUDE BLACK
Mark 12:5
Coping with Frustration
Bob was trying to repair a truck tire. There was a process to follow, and at one point, the tire was placed on a stand and removed from the rim. However, the tire would not slide off the rim. Using the correct tools, Bob hammered at the tire and then hammered again, but it would not budge. Frustrated, he threw all his tools out the door into the driveway, breathed deeply, went to the drinking fountain, took a long, slow drink, picked up his tools, and began working on the tire again. At last, he succeeded in removing the tire, patching the tube, and reassembling it. Bob’s experience was a lesson in patience and in dealing with frustration.
One point of Jesus’ parable of the landowner’s vineyard is handling frustration. At great labor and expense, the landowner built a vineyard, hedged it, built a tower and a wine press, let it out to tenant farmers, and went away. When it was time to collect the rent, he sent servants to receive what one may assume was the agreed-upon rental fee—whether in coin or product is unclear. And St. Mark wrote, “And he sent to the farmers at the season a slave so that he might receive from the farmers from the fruits of the vineyard. And seizing him, they beat him and sent him away empty. And again he sent to them another slave, and that one they beat on the head and dishonored. And he sent another, and that one they killed, and he sent many others, some they beat and others they killed.” (12:2-5)
Jesus, of course, was building to a critical point; however, the parable also includes a parallel lesson in dealing with frustration. Rather than sending an army to eliminate the rebellious tenant farmers after their first act of defiance, he sent another servant who was mistreated, then another, and so on.
I observed a parent with a feisty two-year-old daughter who kept throwing her doll. The mother picked up the doll and handed it back to the girl, who threw it again, and so forth.
After reading this parable, watching the patient mother, and observing Bob’s tire-changing experience—though it is probably not a good idea to throw the tools—there seems to be a lesson in dealing with frustration, usually defined as blocked goal achievement: work diligently, take a deep breath, get a drink, and go back to work.
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