Zip It- Thoughts on Complaining

This note was uploaded to Facebook via the author's blog.

Do you ever get sick and tired of complaining? You go to work and people are complaining. You turn on the news and someone is complaining. You open up Facebook and people are complaining. Complaining is all around us. And, just as the Apostle Paul and I are chief among the sinners, I am chief among the complainers. I will admit it. If you want to hear a bunch of complaining go to lunch with two or three pastors. Good grief!

I was recently reading this post by Steven Furtick that helped me put my complaining in perspective. In the post Furtick writes:

"Make sure you measure your circumstances from the baseline
of what you really deserve.

The reality of grace invalidates any claim to complaint you may stake.

The basis of all complaining is one of the following two erroneous beliefs:

1. I deserve something good I didn’t get.
2. I don’t deserve something bad I did get."

End quote.

If you are a follower of Jesus you have received salvation and a relationship with God through Jesus Christ for this world and the world to come. If you and I receive nothing else in this world we have nothing to complain about. After we have received salvation we have already received more than anything we deserve and we just need to zip it. Grace says we deserve none of it yet God in his infinite love gives it.

I find that helpful when I want to complain (which is often). But I would not stop there because that is approaches the issue of complaining from the negative. I don't deserve any good thing apart from what God in his goodness and love gives me. Yet, how much God has blessed me. When I count my blessings, especially all the things I take for granted, I stand amazed in the presence of a God whose love I cannot even begin to comprehend. No, I don't deserve anything, but look how good God is that he would become like me and take on flesh, that through his life, death, resurrection and return so that a sinful complaining person like me could have life.

So, when I want to complain, I just need to zip it!

I will stop complaining about people who complain now and be thankful to God even for people who complain and especially for a God who loves and blesses me and those I love even though we do not deserve it. That is grace.