Chapter 19 – “I can’t help it; I’m just addicted to grumbling, faultfinding and complaining.”

Wilderness Mentality #4

Hey, if you’re suffering, don’t you want everyone to know it? What good is it if you don’t whine and wail when you’re being wronged? If you don’t grumble, no one will know you’re being unjustly punished. If you just take it, you’ll continue to be taken advantage of. Let them know you won’t take it silently. The more you suffer the louder your cry.

No, we’re supposed to endure suffering patiently. This is pleasing to God.

A wise friend of mine “slapped me in the face” with the following: “So it is the appreciation and trust of sinners that you crave?”

OUCH! More tears. Lots more tears. Well, when you put it that way – NO!

I wouldn’t say that I am addicted to grumbling and complaining. I was trained in it. No one is satisfied or content. Someone is always grumbling about something. Didn’t my parents come home and commiserate? You grumble first about your day and then I’ll grumble about mine. It’s a game to see who has the worst job or coworkers.

I had a horrible morning yesterday. And it just kept getting worse. And I abhor social networks. All these people jumping in with how wonderful everything is or was or will be. And I sunk deeper. Grumbled more. Why? Because I didn’t believe them. I found them to be fake. I don’t trust people who say good things.

I especially don’t trust people who say good things about me. I know the truth.

Ahhhh. I’m showing my colors this morning. I’m partaking of Wilderness Mentality #4 even as I write about it.

My only victory is that the Devil is aggressively attacking me and so I must be a threat.

Heavenly Father, fill me with thoughts of You. Show me your eternal wonders. Give me a thankful heart. Give me a content heart. Fill me with the knowledge of your blessings. Help me to endure and move on. Give me a challenge today that will consume me with Your will for me and not my own. Amen.

For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.
1 Peter 2:19-20 (ESV