Complaining to God

Last week, I wrote on abstaining from complaining to each other, and instead focusing on the beauty of our Lord around us, in turn encouraging all other Christians. It was full of words pointed directly back towards me, about something I have been working on in my life. 

While editing and talking to a few people about the topic, something arose that I could not fit into last week, but have thought of further and want to write more about. 

You see, I still complain. I'm a sorry husband sometimes and heap all my complaints on my wife when I get home from work, or at times call my brother and grieve about this or that. And thinking more about the subject and looking inwardly, I believe I have come upon something. 

When I bemoan something to my wife, or brother or parents or friends, I don't feel any better afterwards. Nothing really changes for the better. If anything, I feel downright pitiful, and kind of embarrased for playing the "woe is me" card in that conversation. I end up hoping that our next talk can be a normal one without dancing around subjects I whined about previously or awkward pauses. 

Thinking further, I see when I do this, I am casting upon them something that they are not really capable of taking care of. I am putting these people in a role they are not able to fill. The shoes I am putting them into are too big, so to speak. 

It is because they are His, the role is God's only. He is the only one we should go to with our complaints. He is the only one that can handle them for us. 

In the Psalms, I feel like David went to God with many complaints, or at least with the intention of complaining. He talked to God of people trying to kill him, the bad situations he was in, how he wanted, even thirsted for more of God. Reading these in the past, I did not think of these words as complaints. But now, it makes me think when we come to God with our troubles, it does something to us.   

It turns them into a conversation.

And at times becomes thanksgiving. 

It provides scope to our situation. 

Brings everything around us into focus. 

That is why it does not seem as if David is complaining, because in the Psalms they have been turned into conversation, thanking, glorification, and requests for tools to stay the course. 

"Give ear to my prayer, O God, and hid not yourself from my plea for mercy! Attend to me, and answer me; I am restless in my complaint and I moan, because of the noise of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked. For they drop trouble upon me, and in anger they beat a grudge against me...

But I call to God, and the Lord will save me. Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice." Ps. 55:1-2, 16-17

Stay humble and laugh a lot,

will