15 Bible Verses About Frustration

Romans 8:20-21

“For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.”

Reflection: Paul tells the church in Rome that the creation “was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice.” His Greek word, mataiotes, is the word the Septuagint uses for hebel, the “meaningless” of Ecclesiastes. The subjection came “in hope”: verse 21 says the creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay, and verse 22 says it has been groaning “as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.”

Ecclesiastes 2:22-23

“What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.”

Reflection: The Teacher, who says he was king over Israel in Jerusalem (1:12), is looking back on all he has built. He hates his toil because he must leave its fruit to someone who may be wise or foolish (2:18-19), and here the frustration reaches his nights: “even at night their minds do not rest.” Verse 24 sets beside the complaint the ability to eat, drink and find satisfaction in work, which he calls “from the hand of God.”

Romans 8:28

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Reflection: Paul places the promise after three kinds of groaning: the creation’s (8:22), believers’ as they “wait eagerly” for the redemption of their bodies (8:23), and the Spirit’s, who intercedes “through wordless groans” when “we do not know what we ought to pray for” (8:26). The people it addresses are still waiting, as verse 25 says: “if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

Habakkuk 1:2-3

“How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, and conflict abounds.”

Reflection: The book opens with the prophet’s complaint. He has called for help and God has not listened, and he is made to watch violence and injustice; verse 4 gives the result, “the law is paralyzed, and justice never prevails.” God answers in verse 5 that he is about to do something “you would not believe, even if you were told,” and Habakkuk’s second complaint asks why God is silent “while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves” (1:13).

Job 23:10

“But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.”

Reflection: Job says his “complaint is bitter” (23:2) and wishes he could find God’s dwelling to “state my case before him” (23:4). He goes east and west and looks north and south without catching a glimpse of him (23:8-9). This verse comes straight after: Job cannot see God, but holds that God sees the way he takes and that the testing will end with him coming out “as gold.”

Psalm 42:11

“Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”

Reflection: The same refrain appears at verse 5 and closes the psalm here. The psalmist remembers going to the house of God “among the festive throng,” and now hears “Where is your God?” all day long (42:3, 10). He asks God “Why have you forgotten me?” (42:9) and then turns to question his own soul, telling it to hope in God.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

Reflection: Paul “pleaded with the Lord” three times to take away his thorn in the flesh (12:8), and he does not say what the thorn was. The request was refused, and the answer he records is “My grace is sufficient for you.” He then lists what he now delights in, including “hardships” and “difficulties.”

Jonah 4:9

“But God said to Jonah, ‘Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?’ ‘It is,’ he said. ‘And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.’”

Reflection: Jonah is angry because God spared Nineveh when its people “turned from their evil ways” (3:10). He tells God he fled to Tarshish because he knew God was “slow to anger and abounding in love” (4:2). God gives him a plant for shade, sends a worm to wither it, and twice asks whether his anger is right. The book ends on God’s question about his concern for Nineveh, and no reply from Jonah is recorded.

Psalm 37:7-8

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him; do not fret when people succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil.”

Reflection: “Fret” translates the Hebrew verb charah, to be hot or kindled; in the form used here it means to heat oneself in vexation. The psalm uses it three times (37:1, 7, 8) about the wicked who prosper, and pairs it with “wait patiently.” Verse 8 says where the heat leads: “it leads only to evil.”

Ecclesiastes 7:8-9

“The end of a matter is better than its beginning, and patience is better than pride. Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.”

Reflection: The Teacher sets the end of a matter beside its beginning and patience beside pride, then warns against being “quickly provoked,” saying anger “resides in the lap of fools.” The next verse adds a question not to ask: “Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’ For it is not wise to ask such questions.”

James 1:19-20

“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.”

Reflection: James writes to believers facing “trials of many kinds” (1:2). The order he gives is listening first, speaking second, anger last, and the reason is that human anger “does not produce the righteousness that God desires.” Verse 21 follows with what to do instead: “humbly accept the word planted in you.”

Psalm 55:22

“Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous be shaken.”

Reflection: In Psalm 55 the trouble comes from a friend: “If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it… But it is you, a man like myself, my companion” (55:12-13). The psalmist wishes for “the wings of a dove” to fly away (55:6) and cries out “evening, morning and noon” (55:17). Verse 22 turns from the betrayal to an instruction, and the psalm closes “But as for me, I trust in you.”

Lamentations 3:25-26

“The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”

Reflection: A few verses earlier the poet says, “My splendor is gone and all that I had hoped from the Lord” (3:18). Then comes the turn: “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope” (3:21), and the reason given is the Lord’s compassions, “new every morning” (3:22-23). These verses draw the conclusion, that it is good to wait “quietly.”

Isaiah 40:29-31

“He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”

Reflection: The promise answers a complaint. Verse 27 quotes Israel: “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God.” The reply is that the Creator “will not grow tired or weary” (40:28), and then these verses: even youths grow tired, but those who hope in the Lord renew their strength.

Galatians 6:9

“Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

Reflection: Paul has just said, “A man reaps what he sows” (6:7). The verse keeps the farming picture: the harvest comes “at the proper time” and on one condition, “if we do not give up.” Verse 10 turns it into an instruction to do good “to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”