We don’t struggle with the abstract things said in the pulpit; we struggle with their application. So, for example, if I say, “Language is a gift from God that ought to reshape our humanity,” you might respond, “Well, that’s beautiful, Pastor Brito. I am going to quote you on that,” but if I say, “Quit grumbling like a spoiled child,” then, you might say, “Well, that’s way too personal.”
Theology in big categories is necessary to form our application, but we will end our days at the “self-help” section of Barnes & Nobles when we apply without first doing theology. When we apply poorly, we end up with all sorts of weird notions of life—thinking that certain things are acceptable when the biblical reality says otherwise.
The wilderness provided Israel many opportunities to test God’s applications of his law. And inevitably, when God said that he would do something out of the ordinary, what do the people do:
You grumbled in your tents and said, “The LORD hates us; so he brought us out of Egypt to deliver us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us. Where can we go? Our brothers have made us lose heart. They say, ‘The people are stronger and taller than we are; the cities are large, with walls up to the sky.”
In that same passage in Deuteronomy, grumbling is dealt with harshly; it is viewed as distrust in Yahweh to the point where God disallows Israel to enter the land. So, grumbling is not a little thing. Luke says that it’s out of the overflow of the heart that the mouth speaks. The Bible dissects our problems with a lot of clarity when it comes to grumbling, but our functional response is to say, “My children made me angry, and then my car, my cat, my boss, the Democrats, my spouse, my remote control, or whatever else made me angry.” However you parse that out you still have to deal with grumbling in the Bible which is unmistakably a condition of the heart.
Why do we complain? We often complain because we want a life without obstacles. We want self-parenting children, we want a marriage without work, we want our lattes without waiting…we want an obstacle-free life. But God works through obstacles as a way of maturing his people. In Exodus, God didn’t transport the Israelites across the Red Sea; he walked them through the miracle of divided waters and dead Egyptians.
But grumbling and complaining are also an indication of our desire to have a Bible-less life. When we complain, we are expressing our words in a world devoid of authority. To grumble, to truly grumble, is to speak as if we lived in an evolutionary universe; to find life in creation instead of the Creator; it’s to find salvation in our outbursts instead of God’s Son. But maybe you’re thinking, “You are just exaggerating!” I wish I were so that I could grumble without consequences. But the Bible is a picky book: it likes to dig into our favorite sins and with the Apostle Paul, it leaves no room for exceptions: “Do everything without grumbling or complaining.”
Of course, the Psalmists share their frustrations with God, people in the Bible express their sorrow, etc. But that’s exactly what you want me to do—give me a way out, a justification for my rashness and whininess, but I am not. “Tell me all the exceptions, so I can justify my grumbling.” So I am not going to give you that pass.
I remember sitting in a counseling room with a distraught dad many years ago who was frustrated by his daughter’s sins. “But she complains about everything. She is never happy!’” And when he put those words together, he paused for a second and made the following passing statement, “I guess she is a lot like me.” Yes, indeed.
Grumbling about life in general and in particular communicates a specific worldview for your children, which they will likely imitate. You may think, “All hope is lost then! I have made complaining a daily routine in my life.” Well, that’s why we need grace, not because we haven’t struggled with something for a long time, but because we have struggled with something like complaining up to a couple of minutes before you read this post. Grace comes to shower your complaints with thanksgiving, which is what the Gospel does for us.
Grace changes our tendency to blame everyone else for our woes and look into our own hearts for our sins. Grumbling rejects the ministry of Jesus in your life because grumbling does not want the truth; it wants what it wants.
For some of us, grumbling may be a way of life by now. While your thanksgiving scale ranges between 10-15 pounds, your grumbling weight no longer shows because it has surpassed the acceptable limits of pounds. How do we reverse that? We change that by joining the happy club of grumblers in need of Jesus (GNJ – for short). We reverse our trends by resting in Jesus’ sovereignty to make us grateful saints instead of artful grumblers and that is the beginning of a new orientation for many of us.
