I've been going through the story of Israel's rebellion towards God for the past few months and it just amazes me how much I see so much of myself in them. I know we all wish we could read about the bad people in the Bible and say that we're nothing like them, but to be completely truthful, I often see myself in the villains of the Bible, not the heroes.
That's what happened when I did a further study into Israel's hard-heartedness and complaining. I'm a complainer myself. Though I'm not very vocal about my complaints, I know it exists in my heart. To complain is to express dissatisfaction about a person or circumstance. Maybe you find that you're a complainer yourself, and you want to change. Don't worry. There's hope.
Complaining out of dissatisfaction and selfish discontent breaks God's heart. Numbers 11:1, talking about Israel's discontentment, says, "And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortunes, and when the Lord heard it, his anger was kindled, and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some outlying parts of the camp."
It might sound intense and extreme, but that's how much complaining in our hearts grieves God's heart. God is most honored when we trust Him fully and respond in worship even when times are tough. But left to our own, we can be more full of complaining than praising most of the times. And as a result, we block God's best.
A complaining heart ruins God's best because it comes out of an attitude that says, "Lord, what you're doing for me is not enough." But that is far from the truth. God has done so much for us. He gave us life and sustains us with His provision. In His love He sent His only Son to be the atonement for a punishment that was to be ours.
God has given us His best and therefore deserves our best as well. But our hearts hardened by sin make us blind to that reality. God however also has a solution for that.
Ezekiel 11:19 says, "And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh." God can and will remove our complaining heart ruined by sin and give us a new heart that teems with gratefulness and praise.
He does that by lavishly showing us His grace. The more that we see how much God has already done for us, we will stop acting as if God owes us something and live as if we owe Him everything.
With Jesus in our life, there's nothing to complain about. He's given us more grace than we deserve and the right attitude towards that is praise, not discontentment.
