The Message of Complaining

Complaining is a common trait among humans. We complain about the weather, traffic, and long lines. It seems that if you stand around long enough you are bound to overhear someone muttering a complaint no matter where you go. While we know it is not what we should do, we fall so easily into the trap of complaining about most things. Sadly, the children of God are not immune to this, in fact, Israel spent much of their forty years grumbling in the wilderness. Tragically, their complaints were not limited to a lack of goods but also directed toward God Himself.

Contradicting the Message of the Gospel
As believers though, have you ever considered the message our complaints convey about our belief in God? To complain is to contradict the very character of God. In truth, every time a complaint leaves our lips it contradicts the message of the Gospel. As children of the Most High God, we declare that our God loves us, so much so that He sent His only-begotten Son into the world to die for our sins. He is a loving, generous, and good God, but our words of complaint don’t back it up. When we say that we don’t have enough, what we are really saying is that God is not a good provider. When we complain about our circumstances, such an extended season of singleness, we are saying that God is not on time or does not know what He is doing. When we complain about feeling abandoned or ignored, we are telling others that God does not love us. If we were to dig a little deeper, however, we would learn the real source of the problem, our hearts. A complaint is merely the verbalization of our thoughts, which are beliefs of our heart at the moment.

A Key Battleground 
Our heart is a key battleground for what we believe to be true and the words that pour from our mouth reveal who won, our flesh or the Spirit. We will face this battle every day and must be vigilant in our guard against the enemy’s weapons. He is relentless in his attack and will use every opportunity to distort the truth of our circumstances and our current conditions to cause us to yield. Our thoughts will be a key piece of ground to fight for in these battles. What we allow to linger in our hearts and minds can impact our perspective. If we let the thought that God has denied us something, we can believe that He is not good. Just as the serpent declared to Eve in the Garden, attempting to make her doubt the goodness of God because she could not eat this tree’s fruit. When we experience an extended season of sorrow or suffering, we can be vulnerable to the belief that God does not even care about us or is even displeased with us. We can think that He is punishing us. Naomi uttered false accusations about God during such a season of loss. She was convinced that God was against her and openly declared her complaints before the people of Bethlehem’s tiny village. Again, the Israelites repeated a similar pattern during their four decades of travel. They often brought their complaints about God to Moses. They could be counted on to find something to complain about, whether that was a lack of water, meat, or even vegetables. Whenever things became a little difficult, they were quick to forget all that God had done for them and loudly complain.
The Necessity of the Quiet Place
Unfortunately, we can all fall into a similar verbal pitfall when our hearts are worn down by suffering and sorrow. Again, to complain about God is to contradict the very character of God. Every human complaint about God is founded on either a lack of knowledge of God or a lack of trust in God. This is why our quiet time with God matters, because it is the place we continue to learn about who He is and where He reminds us of His person. Every page in scripture is an opportunity to build our faith, knowledge, and trust in God. The greater our faith, the harder it will be to complain because we will remember His promises in the difficult, dark, and discouraging days. The more time we spend in God’s Word, the stronger our armor will become, which enables us to withstand the blows of our adversary. When he whispers to our souls that we are being denied something, the Spirit will bring a promise that “the Lord God is a sun and shield: The Lord will give grace and glory: No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” (Psalm 84:11). When the enemy of our souls tries to tell us that if God loved us He would not have let this terrible thing happen, the Spirit will gently remind us that He loves us “with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3) and His “grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9) plus He also tells us that “all things (including the trials and sufferings) work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28). We must saturate our souls with the truth of God’s Word, or we will be vulnerable to Satan’s attack and prone to complain more. God’s truth is the only way we can shift our focus from the earthly to the eternal. 
How to Dissolve our Complaints 
If you have lived for any length of time, you will know that life does not always go according to plan or our timeline. Suffering, loss, pain, disappointments, and hardships will inevitably make their way to us. So what do we do when a complaint threatens to slip out, stemming from these difficult seasons, moments of silence, or times of trials? We must bring them to God. When we have a complaint against someone, it is better to lodge it directly with the person. To complain to everyone else only breeds more problems. In fact, it can stir others to complain or create doubt and stir up discord. There is also no resolution. Nothing can be resolved until the complaint is made to the person we are complaining about. When we find ourselves complaining, like the Israelites, against God specifically, we must bring it before Him. Over and over again, Moses and the Psalmist laid their complaints before the Lord. In Psalm 13, verse one we read: “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever?”. There is an important shift, however, in verse five: “But I have trusted in your loving devotion; my heart will rejoice in your salvation.”
This is how they resolved it, by speaking to God and dwelling on His truth, both in His character and His truth. If a complaint is left inside, it begins to fester. This is why it is so important to bring it to God, pouring it all out before Him, the One who knows all our thoughts already. When we take this step of vulnerability, we will find the help our soul needs. The only way to dissolve a complaint is to deal with it according to the truth, comparing our complaint to what is real. Often we will discover that it is grounded on a false perception or belief.
May we be a people defined by gratitude. Someone once said that, "gratitude isn't only a celebration when good things happen; Gratitude's a declaration that God is good no matter what happens.". Every time we choose to praise God, even in the hardest of circumstances, we loudly declare to both our enemy and a watching world that our God is great, good, and gracious. That is when our light will brightly shine!