Got a Complaint - Take it to God!

I have a question for you. Do you ever find yourself complaining about things? The food you just ordered doesn't taste good; your kids don't clean up their rooms like you would like; your husband totally overlooks the clean house you spent all day slaving over. The list could go on and on. You get what I mean. So do you complain in an effort to feel better? Does complaining, in fact, even make a difference? Does it produce significant and lasting results or does it only give you a temporary quick relief of built-up frustrations that you will only regret later?

When we are discontented in our hearts our mouths often give us away. It all starts in the mind, and when allowed to fester will quickly sink into our hearts. Eventually what is in our hearts comes out of our mouths. All to often it is unkind and unloving. That is why it is so crucial to immediately take captive negative thoughts and give them to Jesus. If we continue to mull over these negative thoughts, more often than not, they will produce sinful actions.

Yet isn't it unrealistic to think that we as sinful people will never complain? I mean even Job was an amazing complainer. He had every reason to complain, didn't he? His entire family and household was destroyed. "I loathe my very life; therefore I will give free rein to my complaint and speak out in the bitterness of my soul. I will say to God: Do not condemn me, but tell me what charges you have against me." Job 10:1-2 So there must be legitimate and justifiable reasons to complain, right? I believe it is part of our fallen human nature to complain when things don't go as well as we like. We can't put up a front and hide our feelings from God. He knows what we are going through and he certainly understands all of our trials, frustrations, and disappointments. Yet instead of lashing out at those we love or ostricizing others, I think He would rather we "tattle" to Him. Tell Him about so and so who has tremendously grieved your heart; cry out to Him about your rebellious teenager and ask for wisdom on how to handle the situation; vent your frustrations to Him about your husband who seems to take you for granted. He is a big God...He can handle it. There is a huge difference in taking our disappintments to Him versus sharing them with others. Granted it sure does feel good when we sit down with a girlfriend who seems to understand and even agree with us, but the question remains, "Does it really make any difference?" Do any long lasting results coming from venting in this way? She is just as powerless to do anything about the situation as you are except sympathize with you. If it is sympathy you want, then go ahead, but if it is results you are after, then I believe there is a better way.

I was reading about Hannah in the book of 1 Samuel. She was one of Elkanah's two wives and and she could not have any children. The other wife, Peninnah, had several children and she provoked and irritated Hannah continuously for years because Hannah was barren. Yet she did not retaliate. She had every reason to feel discouraged and bitter--she was unable to bear children, she was ridiculed by Peninnah, her husband couldn't solve her problem, and even the high priest misinterpreted her actions. So grieved in spirit was Hannah that she could not eat and continuously wept. Her husband loved her immensely and saw how troubled she was. Yet he could do nothing to help her. She wept in "bitterness of soul" and prayed to her God. Eli the priest saw her mumbling and accused her of being drunk. She assured him she was not drunk but deeply troubled and was pouring out her heart to God. So Eli told her to go in peace and may the God of Israel grant her what she had asked for. After she prayed, she went away and ate and her face was no longer downcast. "The Lord remembered her. So in the course of time Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, "Because I asked the Lord for him." 1 Samuel 1:20.

What I love about this verse is that what man is powerless to do, God isn't! He is the one who heard Hannah's complaints, and He is the one who did something about it. Although Hannah may have had every reason to complain about Peninnah's provacations, she didn't complain about her mistreatment. Instead, she came boldly before the throne of Grace and asked the Creator of the Universe to intervene and bless her with a child. So much faith did Hannah have that she was even going to dedicate her baby boy to the Lord for His service. Now that is faith! I wish I could say that I would have handled the situation in a similar fashion. But I cannot. I would have probably wasted my efforts complaining about the injustice of the treatment I was receiving and wondering why God was punishing me. (In those days childless women were considered a disgrace and failure and a social embarrassment for the husband).

Hannah, on the other hand, honestly prayed to God and resolved to leave the problem with Him. What a lesson that is for us. No one will dispute that we live in an ever-changing, fast-paced world, where circumstances continually change, friends come and go, and loved ones let us down. It is also inevitable that disappointments will come our way and may leave us feeling unhappy, discontent, or even aggravated. The challenge is what will we do with these feelings? Will we brood over them and allow them to infect us from the inside out, or will we run to the throne of Grace as fast as we can and pour out our hearts to God? He truly loves us more than we can ever imagine and He has the power to change things. He may very well enlighten us and invite our participation, or he may take care of the situation all on His own. He can do that you know. The One who holds the universe in His hands cares about each one of us. Not only does He have the answer to all of our problems, He has the solution as well.

"Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance, for the Lord is a God who knows, and by him deeds are weighed." 1 Sam 2:3

"Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Heb 4:16

"Do everything without complaining or arguing so that you can become pure and blameless children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like stars in the universe." Phil 2:14

Totally Abandoned to God

I love reading devotionals and one of my absolute favorites is Oswald Chambers', My Utmost for His Highest. In one of my daily devotions the question was asked, “Have I ever been carried away to do something for God not because it was my duty, nor because there was anything in it all beyond the fact that I love him? Have I ever realized that I can bring to God things which are of value to Him, or am I mooning around the magnitude of his redemption while there are any number of things which I might be doing? Not Divine, colossal things, but ordinary, simple human things which will give evidence to God that I am abandoned to Him?" Oswald Chambers went on to say that "there are times when it seems as if God watches to see if we will give Him the abandoned tokens of how genuinely we do love him. Abandonment to God is of more value than personal holiness. Personal holiness focuses the eye on our own whiteness; we are greatly concerned about the way we walk and talk and look, fearful lest we offend him. Perfect love casts out all that when once we are abandoned to God. Furthermore, we have to get rid of the notion, Am I of any use? And make up our minds that we are not. It is never a question of being of use, but of being of value to God himself. When we are abandoned to God, He works through us all the time."

Wow! Does that hit home for me! More often than not the focus seems to remain on me--not Him. I can quickly become perplexed with myself because I am not being holy in my attitude toward others, but what I realize once again is that I need to take the focus off of myself and onto Christ. The question remains, "Am I truly abandoned to God?" Can I love and serve others out of the sheer love I have for Christ? I need to stop focusing on “doing” and simply start “loving” God with my whole heart. The ironic thing is if I make it my focus to love Him and abandon myself to Him and Him alone, He will work through me in my relationships and in all the ordinary, simple things in life. In the way I treat and talk to others, and in the things I do. I don’t need to constantly be doing something out of duty or obligation. I can't make God love me anymore than He already does. All I need to do is to abandon myself unto Him. Love him wholeheartedly. I believe therein lies the evidence. What follows will be a natural by-product of the love I have for God.

What exactly does abandonment look like? The thesaurus uses words like forsake, renounce, relinquish, give up, disown, turn your back on. I believe it means to forsake or renounce or relinquish any and all things that get in the way of loving, seeking after, and making God our first priority. Matthew 22:37 says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your sould and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. We need to give up selfishness, self-indulgences, and anything that elevates us in place of God. There is no room for a prideful attitude, critical thoughts, or justifying sinful actions. We must turn our backs on and give up any rights that we feel we deserve. We must love God and let Him be the judge. We do not need to vindicate ourselves. We just need to love Him. Everything else will flow out of that love. The focus is not on what we can do, but who we can be. If we only do, it becomes a duty or obligation, but if we can be, then we are transformed and of value to God.

This is a big lesson we need to apply to our lives. May the Holy Spirit teach us how to abandon ourselves completely unto God because then and only then will we be truly useful for His kingdom purposes.

And this is my prayer; that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ--to the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:9-11

Are we getting more loving?

I recently went on a ladies retreat and the theme was about Loving Well. My question to you is, "Are you loving more than you can?" During this 24 hour retreat it became obvious to me that I was not loving as well as I could--especially the people closest to me. You know who I'm talking about--my husband and my children. Unfortunately they are the ones who seem to get the "worst part."

God actually manifests himself through us when we love others. He also measures our maturity by how we love. In fact, we have no higher calling than to love. The bible is full of commands to love. Love your neighbor as yourself, love your wife, love your children, and yes, even love your enemies. Wow! Now that isn't easy to do, is it? I can see how we can love our family members and friends, but how on earth are we supposed to love our enemies?

What I learned at this retreat makes a whole lot of sense. We must experience God's ministering love to us first before we can minister love to others. Often we don't allow ourselves to fully embrace God's love for us and; therefore, we also keep ourselves from fully loving others. Simply put, we will not love well until we feel well loved. This is a pivotal point and the only way to receive it is to look to the cross. I am convinced that we will never be able to fully fathom God's love for us until we sincerely consider what Jesus endured for our sake. It should have been us hanging on that cross, not Jesus. It is our sin that put him there, and he willingly took the penalty for us. It was love that kept him there. He knew we would be eternally lost if he didn't die for us. We must let this truth seep into the deepest crevices of our hearts--"God loves us with an everlasting love." Until we acknowledge and experience this love, we will never be able to love others well. Love is part of God's Godness. There is nothing you can do to make Him love you anymore or any less. Furthermore, it is not about feelings or emotions. Do you think Jesus wanted to be tortured and crucified? He even sweat drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane as he thought about his impending death. We must remember that our feelings are fickle. One day we love, the next we don't feel like it. To love involves making a Choice.

I'm not saying that to love is always easy. In fact, it can be rather difficult at times. Let's face it--not everyone is a joy to be around. Many of the people we can come in contact with every single day are downright difficult to love. Yet God also lets us experience sparks of divine love in others. We are called to love all people in spite of the fact that some may be more difficult to love than others. Usually there is something broken in the person who is so hard to get along with. Ask God to give you insight into what that could be and then commit to praying for them. Love them in their brokenness. Extend grace and never underestimate the power of forgiveness or an apology. Remember that God will call us to see "hard love" as a sacrifice unto him and a fragrant offering upon the altar. He will transform us in the process and grow our love in ways we cannot even imagine!

We are also called to love beyond our own "little bubble." What is God doing across the globe? Who is out of your radar screen? We are to love the stranger too, you know. The interesting thing is, it is not just for their benefit, but for ours too. Take time to stop, pause, and minister to strangers. It is our opportunity to love with no strings attached. Loving afar relieves us of the burden of self-absorption. Pour your life completely into others' lives and then watch what happens.

I think the key here is to abide, dwell, and remain in a constant awareness of God's love for us. So, let's start loving because we are already divinely loved. Even though we have an insatiable desire to receive love from others, we are not to be motivated to love just to get something out of it. We know that people fail us time and time again--they're human. Only God can love us unconditionally and perfectly. He pours His perfect love into our imperfect hearts and enables us to love too. If we access His perfect love, we will be able to love anyone through anything. He promises that. The intangible blessings we receive from loving others will far outweigh any tangible gift. We will truly be storing up our treasures in Heaven.

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 1 John 4:7-9

Self-confidence vs. God-confidence

Being self-confident is a good thing, isn't it? I always thought it was. After all, you really shouldn't rely on anyone else to feel good about yourself. So, you look within yourself, into your own inner strengths, gifts, talents, and abilities. All of these things can aid you in becoming a more self-confident person. What is wrong with that? While I do not believe that there is anything wrong with being confident, I have come to learn over the years that if I only look to myself then I will set myself up for failure and disappointments.

Self-confidence means that I am trusting in my own ability to handle circumstances that come my way. No one else's--just mine. The problem is I know that I have weaknesses and shortcomings. I can also be moody at times, and sometimes I am a downright emotional mess. Can I really trust myself to handle situations correctly when I am in that frame of mind? No, I cannot. Let's say I have an important decision to make by a certain day. I procrastinate and wait until the last possible minute and then I make my decision. What if I am having one of those days? Should I really rely on my fickle emotions to make this important decision just because I want to be known as a self-confident woman? I think not!

God-confidence, on the contrary, trusts in God's ability to work through me to handle the circumstances that come my way, not in my own ability. The primary difference is the One to whom you look to handle these various decisions, situations, and circumstances. One focuses on self, the other focuses on God. One looks inward, while the other looks upward. One is about temporary quick-fixes, one is about eternal matters that make a difference.

This has happened to me time and time again, and I am ashamed to admit that I am a slow learner. But I am starting to get it. When you take the time to invite God into the picture, ask for His opinion, and seek His guidance, things just seem to fall into place. Situations that you dreaded turn out to be not so bad after all. Difficult decisions that you made seem to work out. The best part about it is that when you trust God to help you, He will. He promises to help us; He tells us He will never leave us nor forsake us. He will strengthen us and he even does battle on our behalf. What else do we want? Would we rather place our trust in ourselves and hope for the best, or place our trust in God, and rest assured that he is working on our behalf? I don't know about you...but I chose HIM!

For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. 2 Chron 16:9

Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. Psalm 34:5