Not only are we too quick to judge ourselves and our fellow man, we are too quick to complain.
We complain about how our food tastes.
We complain about how people don’t live up to our expectations (we don’t have the right).
We complain when we get cut off in traffic.
We complain about the weather.
We complain about the lot of our life.
We complain way too often and way too much – and like all of us – I am guilty.
There is not much to say as an excuse. We are inherently selfish and inherently prideful.
Thus, it is so easy to put our faith in the things we can taste, touch, smell, etc. instead of where our real help comes from – the maker of Heaven and Earth (Ps 121:1)
These are illusions and even today as I face a headache that I woke up with early this morning, I want to rush to alleviate my pain my own way. Sure there is not really inherently wrong with a nice hot shower or some topical oil but this shows to me that we can run to a “quick fix” way too often when faced with pain, suffering, or adversity.
However, we don’t need to from within. Sure we will experience trials, temptations, pain, etc yet we can have peace, hope, strength, and life from Christ who will never leave us nor forsake us.
We need to draw from a different well, a different spring of water – Jesus.
All good things, in my opinion, point to Christ – so why not our pain. Should we not cast our cares upon Him. He is so good to us. He loves more than we will ever know and rest in that peace today. He loved you yesterday, loves you today, and will love you tomorrow.
You are His child and He is a good good Father. In fact a perfect one. No one can ever be better than He.
Why the snakes in Numbers 20:1-5?
Is it that the Israelites needed to be reminded that they needed His protection? And what happened to them when He did remove it? I wonder if that is what is happening in the world today. We have lost our way and need to look up again. We need His protection.
I don’t care if you are the Israelites in the wilderness who complained about their environment and situation – they, like us need a reminder (sometimes daily) that we need to look up to Him and not within (via ourselves) for strength and hope. We all need Jesus.
And the best part. He allows us, sorrowful pitiful creatures who have been playing in the mud to be washed clean and scrubbed of our sins to be with the Most Awesome Being in the whole universe.
As famously said by C.S. Lewis, in the Weight of Glory:
“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
Why do we complain when we get dirty in the mud when we would be way more pleased with being with our Father – clean, pure, and with Him.
Let’s try to complain less. Flip the coin over and seek to be more grateful and to seek Him all the more.
1 Pe 1:3-5 (NASB95):
3 aBlessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who baccording to His great mercy chas caused us to be born again to da living hope through the eresurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
4 to obtain an ainheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and bwill not fade away, creserved in heaven for you,
5 who are aprotected by the power of God bthrough faith for ca salvation ready dto be revealed in the last time.
