The Button

The Button
When someone annoys you a lot we sometimes say that person "Pushed Your Button". When that happens we can lose our patience. In this exercise, imagine someone is pushing your button and see what happens...

You lost your patience! Try pushing the button again and see if anything changes.

What happened?

Nothing changedSomething changed

Actually that's not true. Nothing changed. You've still lost your patience.

You seem to be caught in a loop of anger.

Here's where we get to use our imagination. Imagine Jesus comes to you and says, "I can fix your patience button, if you'd like." So you say "Yes please." Jesus gets out his tool box and open up the button and cuts the wire that leads to impatience.

"There," he says. "See what happens the NEXT time someone pushes your button."

Want to give it a try?

See? Nothing happened! Someone can push that button all day and because Jesus helped you to disconnect their behavior from your reaction, you won't be losing your patience just because they did something to annoy you. You can actually let the annoyance go!

In fact, Jesus might even have wired you to love this person a bit more when they are annoying you!

Try praying this "Jesus Help Me!" prayer in your imagination and see if it works for you.
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