Rainy Complaining

“But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment.”
(1 Timothy 6:6)

“I wish this rain would stop!” is what I heard loudly, as I was walking through a local store a few days ago, the conversation continued with the other man replying, “Well, when summer hits & it’s hot & dry, we’ll be grumblin’ about there not being enough rain…we ain’t never satisfied.” How true that conversation was, I catch myself complaining about all the wet weather as I watch my weeds grow higher than my knees & every time I do, I remember how I whined about the heat & dryness during our drought last summer.

In Exodus we see ourselves in the words of the Israelites. God continually blessed them with their needs & all they could do was grumble. When they were thirsty: “So the people grumbled at Moses, saying what shall we drink?” When they were hungry: “The whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses & Aaron in the wilderness.” When they were tired of Manna & wanted meat: “…the Lord hears your grumbling which you grumble against Him.” No matter what God did for them, it wasn’t enough, they, instead of coming to Moses & requesting these things, they would grumble amongst themselves, until it became grumbling & complaining to Moses. I often wonder if Moses was bald. I can see it now; some guy started whining to a couple of his buddies (we’ve all done this, so stop thinking of someone else, this might be about you) about being thirsty. Those two buddies started whining to their wives, their wives to there mothers & friends, & as the old shampoo commercial once said, “You tell two friend…& they’ll tell two friends & so on & so on & so on & so on…” until Moses has a problem on his hands. If he wasn’t bald he was receding.

It’s very true that we will grumble no matter the situation, but if we want to be truly godly, we will learn to be content. God knows that we need the rain, he knows at all times what we need when we need it, lets do our best to live our lives coming before God with praise as well as our needs, without the grumbling (this one was for me).

Vern