Thicker Skin?

I encountered an angry man on Friday. I haven’t the foggiest idea why he was so stirred up, but my mere presence acted as a trigger for his eruption. To the best of my ability I tried to listen, speak slowly and answer with gentleness. Despite my attempt to defuse the situation, his anger continued to spiral upwards. When he had escalated to a point that I felt threatened, he finally began to back off. He swiftly turned, grabbed a briefcase from his car and entered a local business. I remained frozen in the parking lot. Part of me was immobilized by the flood of emotions that were welling up in my core…the other part of me thought that if I was stationary long enough, he would return and we could repair what had transpired over the last few minutes. When it was apparent that he wasn’t going to come back, I retreated to a nearby park.

After I got to the point that I was able to release him back to God, I became rather frustrated with myself. In terms of opposition and attack, my little encounter would barely be a blip on the spectrum scale of what others have endured. And yet, for all intensive purposes, I was rendered useless for the next two hours. While I am aware that my highly wired INFJ personality is a massive contributing factor to this, I found it discouraging that a minor event such as this one could shift my demeanor so dramatically. My analytic side kicked in and I began foreshadowing how much my tendency to be easily moved emotionally would affect any ministry that I partner with. Acknowledging the destructive quality in feeling too much, I reasoned that a need for thicker skin was in order and thus I placed an appeal for before God. His response over the last couple of days has challenged the wisdom of my request and so I retract it. As much as I’d like to avoid the negative baggage that comes with feeling in this world, the cost of callousness is more then I am willing to pay. Let me be moved.