Do People Everywhere Complain?

I’m convinced the US has become a nation of complainers. Just watch the news and you’ll see what I mean. Here in SoCal we have dire stories about impending drought leading to probable water rationing and horrific fire danger … until it rains. Then we have dire stories about mud slides and traffic accidents and horrific fire danger (because of all the new vegetation the rain generates, which of course will be dry when “fire season” comes along in a few months).

I don’t know about anyone else, but this complaining wears on me. When you couple it with the discontent fostered by advertising, it would be easy to think the US is worse off than any nation or people of any time.

We have budget problems and health care problems and now Tiger has gone over to the dark side. As if it wasn’t bad enough that Oprah is leaving (in two years)!

And I don’t have the latest iPod or newest Lexus or Wii or Kindle or … After all, I DESERVE those things. The advertisers told me so, and nobody in the media would fabricate such a thing. I mean, we have government rules against such things, so I know it’s true. I should have more and more and more because I deserve more and more and more. Woe, oh woe is me!

Wouldn’t it be a novel experience for us to practice contentment? We Christians certainly can do so. We understand what we actually deserve, yet we’ve experienced God’s mercy and grace. All contentment takes, it seems to me, is to focus on what we have rather than on what we have not.

We can go one step further and praise God for those things and most of all for Himself because clearly, we who are in Christ are rich beyond compare.

My new understanding is that I have exactly what God wants me to have as long as I am walking in obedience to Him.

So there was Job, walking in obedience, and what he had was three miserable friends accusing him falsely of sinful behavior and a body ravaged by disease. Oh, yes. He also had God. And in the end, Job realized when he looked at God … really saw Him as He is … that was enough. Confession replaced his complaints.

Recently I reread The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom with John and Elizabeth Sherrill and followed it with The Five Silent Years of Corrie ten Boom by Pamela Rosewell Moore. Let me just say, When I grow up, I want to be like Corrie! 😉

There’s a woman who knew a thing or two about being content. I’d say her willingness to walk through the fire without murmuring or complaining was a result of her abiding trust in her Heavenly Father. What a great example she provided.

So I guess I’ll have to start the ball rolling in my own life by stopping my complaining about complaining! 🙄 But I still have to ask, do people everywhere complain?