I heard a message recently on complaining - Numbers 11. A lot of the points were really good, but I had a couple of thoughts to add.
The message in a nutshell was this: Complaining displeases God. Not only does it displease God, but it spreads (quickly) from person to person and infects you like a disease. Its true. In this story in particular, a couple of people complained, it spread to the rest of the camp so that everyone complained, and ended with even the leadership turning to God and complaining. God's anger was kindled against the complaining in the camp - but not against Moses' complaining. I found that interesting. As I thought about the difference between the people's complaining, and Moses' complaining, what I saw was that Moses took his complaints straight to God. He didn't mull it over with the people around him, he didn't go and vent, or ask for prayer. He just took his complaint straight to God. It doesn't mean that it was good for him to complain - ultimately it should be our goal to trust the Lord so much in any situation that nothing will move us to ever complain because we know that God is in control - however, we are human and shouldn't be ridiculous to think that that is some easy task that we can just pick up and follow through on. The point is that Moses had the type of relationship with God where he could pour out anything to the Lord (this is, by the way, the same type of relationship that we should put into practice). Dump it out on God - He can take it. Not only can He take it, but only He can remove it. When we complain to others we infect them with our sin - we literally pass it along. When we complain to God, He is able to show us the true state of ourselves, siphon it out, and replace the void with His Holy Spirit, giving us the power to move forward in Him.
My prayer for myself is that I will form better habits to 'make everything a prayer request.' There is no reason to hide any part of yourself from God. Bring it all to Him - Let him weed out the crap - and restore the broken parts - ultimately to bring you that much closer to Him. Praise God!!! For He is indeed so good!!!
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Amber, Thank you for your faithfulness in keeping this blog. I know it will be a constant source of encouragement for me. I just love your heart. Your wisdom and your friendship are invaluable to me.
ReplyDeleteYou know what's crazy? I spent so much that morning remembering the sermon, putting my thoughts together, and writing the entry. Even after all of that, I still spent about an hour 'venting' to Jin that evening. I was so far in to my complaining that once I realized what I was doing and remembered what I had devoted my entire morning to, I was completely embarrassed. Even once I think I've learned something, I haven't really LEARNED it!
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