Complaint Without Context Is Nonsense | Chris Bailey III

This morning the LORD inspired me with a verse to share through the WORD Power for a few people.  It's cold where I am this morning (28 degrees as of this typing) and I wanted to make sure it was cold where others were before I encouraged them to "stay warm".  As I hit my weather app I saw the notable places I wanted to check, and sure enough they were cold.  But then I saw a sunny aberration at the bottom that caught my eye.  I had previously saved all of the cities on my list but not the last one...Y-e-k-a-t-e-r-i-n-b-u-r-g. 

Never heard of it so I definitely didn't save it.  Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk, Russia to be exact.  Not just that, but the temp - 1 degree.  Yes, ONE.  Fahrenheit!  Here I am thinking about my 28-degrees and the brothers and sisters in the "Y" are rolling with 1-degree in mid-December already?!  God spoke.  Complaining never makes sense.  It feels good (to the flesh) but it's deceptive.  It never does anything to actually solve the problem.  Complaints are just like hitting the Bold button to highlight a word on a Word document, but it doesn't move a single pixel.  Now mind you, complaints can be strong because they can actually be based on fact.  The truth of the matter is often what makes complaining so hard to stop or to ignore.  So we nod our head in agreement from our mind, but in our heart we know the LORD is not pleased with our misplaced faith (Notice how I didn't say lack of faith.  We'll get to that in a moment). 

As a recovering complainer, I ask you to consider Exhibit A...the "Y".  I was checking the temperature in my neighborhood at 7:51am Central Standard Time.  If you take another look, the 1-degree in Yekaterinburg, Russia  at the time of the radar scan was 6:46PM their time!  Their daylight was ending when mine was beginning.  So when I was going to get warmer from 28, they were going to get colder than 1!  We were only going to get positive while they could only go into the negative temps...FAHRENHEIT!  Family, we should never complain!  Somebody has always got it worse than us!  No, it doesn't mean that we don't got it bad, but it could still be worse.

Complaint is a balloon lifted by the hot air of our anxiety.  That anxiety is a symptom, so what ultimately is the disease?  Unbelief; lack of faith.  Or should I say, misplaced faith.  We all have a measure of faith according to ROMANS 12:3 - For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
So complaining is taking our measure or cup of faith and putting it on failure.  Resting it on despair.  Which in turn, is just like putting it against GOD.  "No LORD, you can't do it."  "Nah Jesus! You don't care because you can't see!"  Now do we understand why complaining is actually a sin, or faith, against God?

It hurt the LORD when Israel complained in the desert, and it hurts Him even more today when we complain on the borders of eternity.  So a way out of complaining?  Compare.  Get some context by actually comparing your situation to someone else's.  Whether in your family, the Bible, a friend, or even an enemy.  But what if everybody's all good and I am actually the one at 1-degree?  Then compare your situation to God's.  Because all of us have it good, or it will get better, because Jesus decided to take on our bad.  Jesus put Himself at zero for our sakes.  Our Heavenly Father decided to bankrupt Heaven and give us His Son just so we could even be alive to enjoy, not endure, the next breath.  And even when death seems like the answer and the way out, Christ died so the answer is always love and only eternal life through Him is the way out. 

God is not asking us to stop feeling, He is simply calling us to keep believing...in Him!

PSALM 102:1
[[A Prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before the LORD.]] Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto Thee.