Don't Push My Buttons! -guest post

My husband, Micah, wrote something this morning after being asked an interesting question. So, he is "guest posting" today with his answer to "What do you do when someone is pushing your buttons?"

DONT PUSH MY BUTTONS!!

Someone recently asked me, "does anyone ever push my buttons or what do i do if they push my buttons".  I said "they don't" and then laughed cause we all know, that's not a very likely answer.  I didn't really get a chance to answer the question and it's been in my head...what do I do?

I used to let this happen to me A LOT.  I used to be a different person, too though.  How I dealt with it and the thinking behind the response are two different issues, I think.  First, depending on how hard you pushed my buttons, a couple of different things would happen.  I can share a few different examples (unfortunately). 

When I used to play ball all the time and someone would try to get me, I would start playing extremely hard.  Do everything I could to score, or stop someone from scoring...start playing rough and fouling...start talking a lot of trash. 

If someone was just trying to mess with me in a general setting, I would have most likely gone off in one of two possible ways (equally as nasty).  A) You would have probably gotten an ugly little string of expletives running right at you in a who do you think you are sense... or B) An all out verbal assault of put downs and insults flying at you like a rabid cat on crack.  Both of which unfortunatly could just flow right out of my nasty little mouth all too naturally.

Probably my most common response is, I would be done with you.  You could expect to not hear from me anymore at all.  I had this strange little tick where I could literally not talk.  For hours, days, weeks...maybe even months, and just shut anyone out.

Here's the one that I am working on right now...and it hurts my feelings to even talk about it.  My kids...  Sometimes, my fuse is way too short.  There are times when anger needs to be shown, so young ones can learn, but this is not always the case.  If one of my boys doesn't listen when I'm asking them to do something I can start yelling, or have been known to grab someone and physically move them into my face so I can "talk" to them.   

Now that my business is out there, let's talk about MY responses and reasons and maybe they can help you a little bit.  WARNING:  I'm writing from a Christian perspective, so if you can't handle Biblical truth and you need help, this might be the time to go find Dr. Phil's blog.

If you look at the underlying common theme, it's pride.  The nasty little beast, kind of like the orange hunger monster from the weight watchers commercials.

Here's how he sounds... 

How dare they treat you like that?  Don't they know who you are?  Do you they think they have the right to hurt your feelings?  Don't they know that you are better than they are and do not have time to be bothered with their nonsense?  That was dumb.  They are just stupid and annoying.  Can you believe they have the audacity to be so lame around you.  They had better listen and respond to you NOW.  You ARE the parent!  Go ahead, LET THEM HAVE IT!  In the words of Maximus "Unleash Hell!"

Yeesh.  How ugly is that right?  But isn't that really what we do when we say someone is -"pushing MY buttons"?  My certain set of conditions and circumstances that you are not allowed to violate? 

What does the Bible say about pride?  Pride goes before the fall?

Yeah, but let's look at the actual scripture: Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty (disdainfully proud; snobbish; scornfully arrogant) spirit before a fall. It is better to be of a lowly spirit with the poor than to divide the spoil with the proud. -Proverbs 16:18-19

Then we try to play it off by saying, no it's not really pride...whatever just bugged me...and we create more cool little sayings, like I just need to blow off some steam and I'm ok.  Go ahead and try justify what you are doing.

The Bible says that God HATES pride Proverbs 8:13 (that's right, look it up).  The danger is that pride can and will keep you away from God.  

The wicked in his pround countence (appearance) does not seek God; God is in none of his thoughts. -Psalms 10:4

Jesus said humility is what God seeks:  Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. -Matthew 5:3

If you want to know what kind of damage your verbal retaliations are you can read James.

Don't get me wrong...there are times to be upset about things, but I'm guessing most of those don't all under the general "pushing my buttons" heading. 

What I do is pray for patience, and when I start to get upset...instead of the old stand by counting to 10, I count the fruits of the spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control.  If you make it through those and are still upset, you better hit your knees now cause you have a few more issues going on!

Ultimately we need to realize we are nothing apart from God.  All glory in our lives has to go to Him.  If we can make this our focus, our pride will start to shrink, and I think that people pushing our buttons will become less of and then no issue at all.

Peace.

Micah