Living a Complaint-free Life - Part I

Living a Complaint Free Life – Part I

On an average Monday morning recently, a thought occurred to me.  I am able to live a complaint-free life!  How is this possible?  It begins simply when I resolve to stop complaining about anything or to anyone.  As I write in July 2011 within a sweltering, debilitating and potentially fatal heat wave throughout the United States, I will not complain about the heat.  It is July, thus it is supposed to be hot.  If it were forty degrees below zero at this time of year, then possibly a complaint would be reasonable.  But experiencing the usual “dog days” of summer with haziness, heat and humidity does not justify any complaints.  Besides, when high summer temperatures and elevated heat indexes tempt me to complain, I immediately think about the six feet of snow my son and I shoveled in winter.  Given a choice, I prefer to retreat to air conditioning in a library to write or read, take multiple daily showers and continually change clothes.  Mounds of snow seemed endless as we had to move them a shovel at a time.  A day’s effort barely made a dent.  Plus, our neighbors did not understand when we sought to move snow from our driveway onto a shared space.  Nonetheless, fleeting thoughts about wind chills, ice, slush, black ice and blizzards combine to eliminate any complaints I may have about a need to escape to a beach.  My meditations, contrasting summer and winter, enable me to appreciate the futility of complaining. 

Complaining is not a spiritual virtue.  Moaning and groaning about insignificant things possess absolutely no worth whatsoever!  Yet, many people spend an inordinate amount of time and energy grumbling about very small things.  Sadly, they never find joy in life.  Their innumerable and relentless complaints blind them to God’s presence and purposes.  Consider, as an example, many times in which a very spiritual and successful program occurs at church.   Congregants who work hard to achieve this success undoubtedly conclude it is a worthwhile effort.  But, other people will certainly point out various ways in which the event failed to fulfill their personal preferences.  These parishioners erroneously complain as if they were furthering the will of God.

Complaining is an offense against God.  When you insult God’s servants with your complaints, you are actually slighting the Lord.  The wilderness passages of Exodus chapters 15 and 16 demonstrate this spiritual reality.  Upon their liberation from Egyptian slavery after 435 years, the Israelites groan to Moses and in turn God about their lack of water.  Arguably, they should have been so busy praising God for their freedom they would not have time to complain.  Embedded, however, in their complaints is an indictment of the God their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, who will fulfill faithfully the covenant He made with them.  Their grumbling signifies their extreme doubt Almighty God is able to provide water and sustain them during their journey to the Promised Land. 

Malcolm X vehemently advocated “decolonization of the Black mind” in which Black Americans had to strive for mental freedom in addition to physical and legal liberty.  Similarly, though the Israelites were free in body, they retained vestiges of mental slavery.  They even rhetorically told Moses and Aaron that “comforts of Egypt” where they ate and drank their fill surpassed challenges of liberty in the wilderness.  Still, their complaints are an indictment God’s character and ability.

Simply stated, complaining is an act of faithlessness.  Emphasizing the negative means you do not have faith to actualize the positive.  In yelling for water, bread and meat, the Israelites essentially say the God who liberates them is powerless to sustain them.  Their complaints mean they really did not believe God could lead them into Canaan, the land He promised on oath to their forefathers.  Furthermore, Exodus 16:20 shows they did not believe God will meet their daily needs.  Moses instructs them to gather manna they need daily.  Except on the evening prior to the Sabbath, they are to gather enough for two days.  But, the people hoard some manna; it begins to smell and maggots infest it.  What a stark and apropos image of doubt, cynicism and ulterior motives that belie constant complaining!