CHARLO, New Brunswick, April 12, 2024 – Let’s play a little game, shall we? Let’s see how long we can go without complaining about something. How long do you think you’ll last before being disqualified? If you’re like most people, you won’t last an hour, because complaining, unfortunately, has become the default mode for conversations these days. In other words, complaining has been normalized and even trivialized in modern society. But the normalizing of complaining is the normalizing of ingratitude, which is an expression of pride… all of which means that we born-again believers need to work extra hard at winning the “no complaining” game every day of our lives until God takes us Home.

We know that God hates when his children complain. In fact, he hates it so much, he condemned nearly the entire generation of Israelites that were of age at the time of the exodus. Their sentence was to die in the wilderness before reaching the Promised Land because they chose to complain about their freedom under God and long instead for slavery under demons.

What about you? Do you complain? Do you think that your life was better before you were reborn? I in no way believe my life was better before my rebirth, but I still have to bite my tongue umpteen times a day to keep little whines from spilling out. I don’t mean any harm by them and frankly I’m usually just shooting the breeze with someone, griping good-naturedly about the weather or the traffic. These are just careless, casual remarks, but are they hurting me anyway?

Scripture says yes, they are. Any kind of an expressed complaint is signifying that you don’t like the way things are in your life. But the way things are in your life is what you’ve brought on yourself by your words and your thoughts and your deeds. Jesus says the measure we mete (dish out) is the measure we get in return, so if we feel we’re getting less than we deserve, the problem lies in us, not in other people or in “bad luck” or in God.

Even worse, at the root of our impulse to gripe is ingratitude. When we complain that things are not as good as they used to be or not as good as they could be, we show ingratitude for all the good gifts God has given us and continues to give us on a daily basis. We honestly have no clue how many blessings God showers us with day in and day out, as we tend to take nearly everything we have for granted or we mistakenly believe we have ourselves and our own efforts to thank for our abundance (all you Nebuchadnezzars out there – I’m talking to you!).

Reasonably good weather and living conditions? Check. Comfy roof over our heads? Check. More than sufficient food in the fridge and cupboards? Check. Amiable companionship? Check. Stimulating leisure activities? Check. Purposeful work and adequate income? Check. Good health? Check. All these blessings didn’t just happen; God arranged them for us and presented them to us as gifts. He doesn’t want us to faun and grovel over his gifts, but he does at least expect us not to complain about them.

If the root of complaining is ingratitude, what is the root of ingratitude? When we reject what we have and demand something bigger and better, or newer and shinier, or faster and more impressive, we’re essentially saying that we deserve more than what we have, which defies what Jesus taught us about the measure we get being the measure we’ve earned. And what is the core motivator for believing you deserve more and better?

Pride.

The same pride that consumed Satan and his followers and ultimately got them perma-banned from Heaven.

When we praise God, we’re thanking him. When we thank God, we’re showing our gratitude for his gifts. And when we show God our gratitude for his gifts, we’re standing humbly before him as his loving and beloved children. There is no better place in all of creation than standing before God, loving him and humbly receiving his love. Humility, as we know, is the opposite of pride: “A humble and contrite heart you will not despise.”

So the next time you almost let slip a complaint, remember the Israelites in the wilderness and what happened to them when they complained. If it hasn’t yet happened to you, it doesn’t mean it won’t happen; it just means that God is generous, merciful, and longsuffering towards you, giving you yet another chance after yet another chance after yet another chance, which you should also be grateful for.

I certainly am.