Your coworker flosses at her desk.  Another won’t keep political opinions to himself.  Drivers in your community just can’t seem to figure out how a 4-way stop works…

I don’t know about you, but I have this idea about how the world should work.  And when it doesn’t work that way, I can get aggravated.  Some people call these little aggravations, Pet Peeves.  Nothing big, like, “that guy just stole my car!” But smaller grievances that seem to add up over time, and can just ruin my day.

Back to the 4-way stop.  There’s an intersection like that just down from our house.  My wife and I went through the area recently, and once again, there seemed to be some confusion about which driver was supposed to go next.  I started my rant about how inexcusable this situation was, and my wife, in a mostly polite way, reminded me that she had heard the rant before.

I realized then, that, not only had she heard it, but many of my friends and coworkers had heard it as well.  In fact, rather than rejecting things that ‘got under my skin’, I was doing everything I could to ‘own’ those things…  to make them, My Pet Peeves!

Think about it, who actually suffers when I rant about my pet peeves?  I do!  And so do you, if you have a collection of things that, “really gets on my nerves.”  Max Lucado says, “Joy is such a precious commodity.  Why squander it on a quibble?”

I look at it like I have these shelves in my heart, and, as I’m making room for all these boxes labeled, “PET PEEVES,” I’m squeezing out the space for Joy, and Satisfaction, and Family, and Ministry… How can I show love for others, when my heart is full of all these minor irritations and annoyances?

Lucado sums it up pretty well, I think. “How can you help people smile if you have a hole in your happiness basket?  You can’t.”

Be patient, bearing with one another in love. –Ephesians 4:2