What holds you back from My Will is your will. From your will, you hold on to the things you hold on to because you feel that you need them and that they are appropriate.

You feel that somehow aggravation and annoyance and frustration serve you, that you might be less without them. You beat yourself up daily with aggravations. You don't want these beatings yet somehow you feel you might be adrift without them to occupy you. You feel somehow that aggravation entertains you, that it gives you something to complain about, something to feel unnerved by, something to distract you from more momentous things.

Have you not let the gnats of aggravation ruin many a day?

What are you afraid would happen if you had nothing to grumble about?

Would you be lost without a crisis?

Must you set fires so that you can heroically run around putting them out?

It is not heroic to be a martyr to inconsistencies around you. Did you think it was? How can victimizing yourself make you heroic? Whatever goes on around you, when it overpowers you, have you not victimized yourself?

In order to be frustrated, you have made certain premises.

One premise is that life is supposed to be what you ordain it to be, that things are supposed to go the way you want and that they must. When they do not, you assume that something is amiss. You perceive that something vague out there is out to get you, ensnare you, trap you, keep you, prevent you, and you must fight against it.

Yet when you take a walk in a quarry, you do not think that rocks were put there to block you. You do not take the rocks personally. You are not surprised that rocks are there, nor are you overwhelmed by them. You walk over them or around them, or go back and find another way. Certainly, you do not let them become the masters of you. They are not cues for frustration.

What if you could accept that inconvenience and trip-up's are part of the land of life? Have you not thought that they were not supposed to be there? Have you not pounced on them in your life and held them up as wounds? What if disturbances do not have to disturb you? Who said they have to?

I think you did. Certainly not I!

And are there not many turns in your life that are just the way you like. Are there not days when everything falls into place according to your preference? Then, why not fuss over the lovely occurrences and make a to-do about them? Is it not your role in life to exalt the light of the sun rather than to carp about the rain?

You say you would welcome a day without aggravation. You say you would give anything for such a day. Yet, it seems to Me, you do not often give credence to the possibility of such a day. You think it is a fluke when things go according to your premises, but when they don't, you think it is a deliberate breach. You want life to be snag-free, but you think that snag-free is the exception, at least for your life. I don't often notice you looking for the smoothness of your days. I do often notice you looking for the next bump.

What if you allowed yourself one day without aggravation.

What would you supply in its place? What would you replace it with?

To the Lord's Prayer, let Us this day add: "Lead me not into frustration, but remove me far from it."

And so today remove yourself from the notion of frustration.