When we grumble a lot, we become arrogant people thinking we deserve better more than what God has provided us and blessed us, with. When we complain a lot, we rely on our own understanding and deny the great wisdom that is of God’s.
Over breakfast, my elder daughter, looking anxious, blurted out she had a dream that it was the start of school. “That was not a dream, that was a nightmare!”, whinged my younger one.
That is so true for many of us. Depending on which part of the world we are from, Christmas is season of joy, especially if we have that two-week break and luckier, if we have a month-long one. Coming from this long hiatus, we dread going back to the normalcy of work.
I am not going to lie but I do share my daughters’ sentiments . Sometimes, I succumb to grumbling, myself. The only difference is that I do not speak it loud. I hid it in the innermost part of me, challenge that whinging sign of discontent and later, quell it. I ask myself, “what difference is complaining going to make?”. Halting the thought of discontent, thoughts grumbling become mere clouds hovering above me, passing before my eyes, and moving until it no longer matters and words of complaint, no longer spoken.
Whinging, grumbling, moaning, “reklamo (Filipino term)” or complaining, has sadly been, becoming a culture. A habit. A really bad, bad, bad habit. Like Thor hammering it away, I usually find myself gathering enough strength and momentum to break that habit, myself.
Complaining a lot, we do not realise, could be a sign of things that could be ailing our souls.
When we grumble and express discontent over our supposed blessings (i.e. our job, roof on our heads, food on our table), we declare that we deserve better – a better job, better looks, better house, better spouse, steak rather than fish, I-phone 12 over its countless predecessors. We yearn to be in some other place rather than we we are. On a couch. On a holiday cruise. In a restaurant. When we grumble a lot, we become arrogant people thinking we deserve better more than what God has provided us and blessed us, with. When we complain a lot, we rely on our own understanding and deny the great wisdom that is of God’s.
Grumbling and feeling we deserve better, is subtly, pride. In Proverbs 16:5, we are reminded not to be arrogant and proud:
Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished.
Excessive complaining, is lack of trust, lurking in the dark. Jesus spoke about trust in John 14:1:
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”
If we are truly who we say we are, believers and practitioners of God’s divine wisdom, then we must keep our grumbling and complaining at bay and under control, if not fully extinguished.
I can only imagine how excessive complaining could lead us to the worst and how it could consume and turn us to sinful arrogance, pride, sloth and greed. I, myself, will stomp on the habit of complaining even before it gets up my easily-swayed brain. How about you?
Appointed by God 