Skip to main content

No Grumbling or Complaining

 Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain. (Philippians 2:14-16”)

“OK, God, get me moving…” There are mornings when I grumble as I get out of bed. I sound like someone trying to start a motor that just won’t catch. “Help, God. Left…right…hup, two, three, four.” Grumble, grumble, grumble. I am working on doing this less, but there are body parts that grumble at me, and sometimes it helps if I grumble back. And as my body and mind start, I get into gear and I don’t think I grumble, or at least not as much.

Then, of course, there is the whining. Paul didn’t mention whining, but I suspect it’s a form of arguing, or flat-out rebellion. “I caa – aan’t.” We’re not even talking one-syllable. “I don’wannna.” Somehow, it tends to be on a descending scale.

I’m not sure the first paragraph is grumbling. I’m pretty sure the second is. After all, the first paragraph doesn’t say “NO!”; the second does. My first point, then, is that grumbling might not sound like what we think of as grumbling. I’ll grant that when the Israelites grumbled, they tended to grumble about God and about Moses (and his leadership team).  I convince myself that I’m grumbling about me. Sometimes, I even have a “Your daughter” talk with God. I tell myself I’m siding with God against myself, but the point is for Him to do something about me, and why hasn’t He? Then there’s the fact that one of the things that convinces me that I’m not the one telling me to do something is that my response to what God has wanted me to do has generally been, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, oh, OK.”

But we’re not told not to grumble at God. We’re told not to grumble, period. We’re not to grumble, and we are to do “everything” without that grumbling. That doesn’t mean we’re to do everything we’re told to do, or even everything we want to do. Abram argued with God about Sodom and Gomorrah. Joseph told his master’s wife, “No,” repeatedly. Daniel and his three friends both told their master, “No.” So did Mordecai. Amos complained to God about the prophecy God gave him. And it’s appropriate today to mention that Martin Luther King, Jr. taught his followers to say, “No” without grumbling. They were to break unjust laws and accept the consequences just as Daniel and his three friends did. “Not grumbling or  complaining” doesn’t mean being codependent. It doesn’t mean doing nothing. It does mean praying about how God would have us deal with the situation. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more