They Were Free And Still Complaining

Complaining does not feel like a spiritual problem. It feels like accuracy. You are just describing what is actually happening.

Psalm 106 tells the story of people who had watched a sea open in front of them. Within weeks they were complaining. Verse 24 says, "Yea, they despised the pleasant land, they believed not his word." They were standing on the edge of the thing they had prayed for and could not see it.

That is what the habit does. It is not really about the food or the weather or the delay. It slowly trains you to see God as someone who is holding out on you.

The way out is not clenching your teeth and deciding to be positive. Hebrews 4:16 says, "Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." You go to Him with it, out loud, including the parts that are genuinely hard.

Here is the thing, joy is not something you have to generate. The Holy Spirit already put it in you. What you get to choose is what you agree with, and that choice usually shows up in something small, like whether you say the one good thing about today out loud or only the three bad ones.

They were already out of Egypt. So are you, and it is worth saying so before you start on what is still missing.