Grumbling and Complaining

I am always amazed when reading Exodus at how quickly the Israelites lost their joy at being a freed people and turned from thanksgiving and rejoicing to grumbling and complaining. Exodus 16:1-2 tells us “They set out...on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness...” Just six weeks after God had miraculously parted the waters of the Red Sea, killed the Egyptians pursuing them, and freed them from slavery, they are grumbling and complaining. True, they are hungry, but rather than praise God for His mercies in the past and ask Him to please provide for them now,  they go into drama mode saying it would have been better to have died in Egypt by the meat pots and with stomachs full of bread than to die in the wilderness of hunger. 

Grumbling comes from an ungrateful, untrusting heart. When my children were young and began complaining about this or that, I would challenge them to give me a list of what they were thankful for.  Of course, that usually generated more grumbling, but I  persisted, making my point with them.  Paul admonishes the Philippians in 2:14 to “Do all things without grumbling or questioning...in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world...” In this passage, Paul is telling them to work out their salvation by demonstrating their faith daily, growing spiritually, and therefore showing a sinful world what Jesus Christ looks like. He is cautioning them against being like their forefathers whose spiritual progress was hampered by grumbling and questioning. Christians are to be marked by thanksgiving, not grumbling and questioning. We see the admonishment to be thankful in Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians.

So, this week I challenge us all to take every complaining thought captive, replacing it with rejoicing and thanksgiving. I challenge us to not allow our joy to be stolen or to rob someone else of joy by grumbling. Let’s honor our Lord and be a blessing to others as we “givie thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1Thess 5:18)