Grumbling and Complaining

            In 1729 Charles Wesley was attending college at Oxford, and had begun meeting with a group of friends for prayer and Bible study. Their goal was to grow in their pursuit of holy living. To help them in this spiritual pursuit, Charles asked his brother John to join them, and John devised a series of 21 questions that they could ask each other daily or as they came together.

            The complete list of questions can be found on our website: http://holston.org/churches/telford-umc-telford-tn/resources/

            I have been doing a daily video devotional on our church’s Youtube channel where I look at one question per day and Scripture that goes along with it. The goal is to have an intentional 21 days for us to focus on our pursuit of holy living.

            21 questions in 21 days. It doesn’t sound that hard, right?

            A pursuit of holy living. That sounds like something that we should be doing anyway, right?

            The truth is that I think this is harder for us than we might think. 21 days is the amount of time that it takes an action to become a habit. And we often think of a habit as something harmful or that we need to stop. But habits can also be good, and in that case we just call them spiritual disciplines. But call them whatever you want, the point is that we are called to be holy, and to live holy lives, and this takes an intentional, focused, and Spirit driven commitment.

            Today we don’t have the space to address all 21 questions, that’s what my daily videos are for. If you want to see more of this you can visit here: https://www.youtube.com/user/telford umc

            But I would like to do today is simply look at one of the questions at random. Here is our question of the day:

Do I grumble or complain constantly?

            This should be a mute point for Christians. But the reality is that we are not immune to the temptations to grumble, argue, or complain. In fact, my United Methodist brothers and sisters, we are cornering a market on the ability to argue within our faith.

            I was talking with someone about this question recently and he asked me, “how often is ‘constantly’?” I think at that point we’ve missed the point.

“Do everything with grumbling or complaining”

-Philippians 2:14

            Everything.

            We all have bad days. We all have things right now at this very moment that we could complain about. We all have things that we could easily argue with another person about.

But why? What would be our motive in this? What would it change?

            I think the whole idea here behind this question is about our perspective. I am not denying that there are plenty of things we could complain about right now, but what I am asking, and I think John Wesley was asking with this question, is what other things could I focus on?

            A little later in Philippians, here is how Paul answered that question:

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God,which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

            You can choose to grumble, complain, and argue constantly. Or, you can choose, by the peace of our Lord, not to. Let’s turn our attention toward Jesus today, and what we have to be thankful for rather than what we can complain about. Make a list today, count your blessings and name them one by one and see what God has done for you!