Ralph
L. Woods wrote several years ago about a father, who wanted to illustrate to
his son the difference between anger and exasperation. He looked up the phone
number of a pompous fellow whom he knew only by name and reputation, and he
dialed the number.
When
the gentleman answered the phone, the father asked, “Is Adolph there?”
“There’s
no Adolph here. Why don’t you get the right number before bothering people this
hour of the night?” roared the man on the other end.
“Now
that,” said the father when he put down the phone, “was simply annoyance. We’ll
wait a few minutes, and then you’ll hear something.”
After
a decent interval, the father dialed the same number and again asked, “Is
Adolph there?”
This
time the other party literally screamed into the phone, “What’s the matter with
you, are you crazy? I told you to look up the number and stop bothering me!” whereupon
the receiver at the other end was slammed down.
“Now
that fellow was angry,” said the father. In a few minutes I will show you what
I mean by exasperation compared to anger.
After 15 minutes or so,
the father dialed the same number for the third time, and when the same man
answered at the other end, the father said almost cheerily, “Hello, this is Adolph.
Have there been any messages for me during the past half hour or so?”
Does
this story help explain this verse from the Apostle Paul, “4 Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring
them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” Eph. 6:4)? NIV 1984
