It’s mid-summer over here. I see and feel it in the rising UV index rising and the beach traffic piling up. But, if i am honest, I also see it in the rise of my own irritability.

The first few weeks of summer, we all relish in the break from strict routines and stocking lunchboxes. But quickly thereafter, the grumpiness and irritability in our home rises. As much as I want to blame the lack of routine, the limited budget, and the lack of an air conditioner, the irritability starts in my own heart. Shorter tempers and sharper tones are tell-tale signs my soul needs a mid-summer check-up.

I need to put myself under the watchful, gracious care of the Good Physician. I need the doctor of my soul to honestly diagnose my present heart condition. I need his help separating out circumstances and sin. He knows my frame and my of-the-dustness, so he is gracious when I’m exhausted from days of trying to meet the varied needs of various aged children in my home. He does not chide me for feeling spent. Yet, his word gently asks diagnostic questions that help me to inspect my irritability.

Trade Your Irritable Heart for His Charitable Heart

In order to daily put on robes of righteousness rightly, we must continually put off the flesh. This putting off/ putting routine described by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4: 20–24 and Colossians 3: 12–15 is meant to be as or more frequent than my children’s summer costume changes (pajamas to bathing suits to sports cloths to pajamas). We are commanded to shed our sin as quickly as our children shed their sandy suits (and leave them in a heap on the floor).

My mind knows this, but my soul is slow to submit. I forget that confession is a merciful gift not a dreaded work. Naming my sin honestly without euphemism is humbling. Often times I am irritable because I want control and wrongly assume that my time is my own. When other schedules and requests infringe upon and change my expectations for the day, I begin to fume. In such moments, I desperately need to remember that Christ has already taken my irritability upon himself. He offers me full access to his charitable heart.

Putting off the flesh that belongs to my former way of life makes space for me to put on love in keeping with my deepest identity.

Rest & Remember

When I inspect my irritability, in addition to sin that must be confessed, I find deeper desires and needs that I get to bring to the Lord. God graciously allows my irritability to become an invitation to rest and remember.

As an introvert who needs alone time and routine, I have a need for margins. When those margins get squeezed, rather than respond by voicing my need for help, I dig deeper into my own limited storehouses. This works for a few weeks until I run dry and become an irritability machine. When the fuming becomes frequent, I have a very visible reminder to run to his resources. Isaiah invites me to rest and remember my God:

“He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and grow weary, the young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40: 29–31).

Some of my recent irritability is really grief over changing seasons of parenting. Part of me is glad to be the cab driver taking my high schoolers to the beach to hang out with friends; yet, another part of me is remembering the days when I carried their diapered bottoms in my arms and sat with them in the sand. When I name the grief and bring it into God’s presence, the irritability begins to subside.

Global warming may cause record high temperatures in the coming weeks; but my heart need not match them with growing irritability. Traffic might wreck my time, but it can also remind me that my time was never mine anyway. I have access to an eternally-charitable heart whose strength of love dwarfs my irritability.