Monday, January 30, 2012

Complain! Complain! Complain!


It's a terrible sin for people to constantly complain about trivial things that have nothing to do with spiritual growth or morality. The reasons are usually the same: they complain because life isn't as easy as they would like it to be, others aren't as quick or efficient as they would like them to be, or things aren't done exactly the way they would like them to be done.

I've always felt bad for Moses in the Old Testament. He was continually having to deal with these types of complaints and it distracted him from doing God's work in leading the people to a closer and more intimate relationship with their Heavenly Father. As a result, God's true dream for His people was not fulfilled.

Here is a passage of Scripture that describes some of the complaints Moses had to deal with:

"Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord, and when He heard them His anger was aroused. Then fire from the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the Lord and the fire died down. So that place was called Taberah, because fire from the Lord had burned among them.

The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, 'If only we had meat to eat!'"

Numbers 11:1-4 (NIV)

Sadly, I've noticed that things are not much different in our churches today. Pastoral staff members spend an insurmountable amount of their time dealing with the same self-centered complaints. Consequently, they exhaust themselves trying to please and satisfy the people, and they have little, if any, time left over to focus on doing what God has called every member of the Church to do: to selflessly focus on the needs of others in the community and further beyond.

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