A preschool that becomes a daycare center during the first part of summer lurks next door to us. Right outside my home office window as a matter of fact.
When the weather warms up a bit and the little ones play outside, it’s loud. But, ‘normal loud’ is often punctuated by the yelps, howls or screams of a child that didn’t get what he wanted, or who got punched, or who got punched back. “Waaaaaah!”
When we lived in the Picardy region of France in Guignicourt, one of the neighbor’s girls often played in earshot of my office window there. That was the whiniest kid I ever heard in my life. She’s going to grow up to make some young man miserable if she doesn’t get an attitude change.
I’m glad I don’t watch little ones for a living. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve very patient with the little rugbugs—for fifteen minutes. If I’m kin to the kid you can double my patience limit, but they can still get on your nerves when they whine, huh?
I wonder if God gets tired of my howling. Probably.
The problem with wailing and feeling sorry for myself is that it’s like cigarettes—the weed kills the smoker and those around him are more likely to be sick because of the second-hand smoke.
I’m not the first whiner, though. Israel grumbled all through the desert on the way to the promised land and they complained so much on the border of Canaan that God wouldn’t even let them go in.
He had to wait forty years for a generation of praisers and thanks-givers to grow up and take the land. Constant moaning and groaning is a wonderful recipe for losing what God gives you:
“Because you didn’t serve God, your God, out of the joy and goodness of your heart in the great abundance, you’ll have to serve your enemies whom God will send against you. Life will be famine and drought, rags and wretchedness; then he’ll put an iron yoke on your neck until he’s destroyed you.” (Deut. 28:47, The Message)
So what can I do to change?
1. Intentionally stop complaining and start to thank the Lord for his blessings. I try to come to a standstill at least three times a day and consciously thank the Lord for something He has done for me. Often it’s small but I’ve found that thanking him for small blessings softens my heart and changes my attitude as much as thanking him for big blessings.
This has made a difference in my life.
A truly, consistently thankful person doesn’t whine a lot because he sees the world differently. A good God controls his destiny, so even when things don’t seem to go his way, he knows he’s loved and taken care of. He just keeps being thankful.
2. Then, consciously take the promises God has made us in his word and apply them in our lives. Believe that God wasn’t just talking into the air when he committed himself to us, but that he REALLY will help those who seek him with their whole heart.
If you thank, praise, and believe you life will change from:
“Waaaaaaaaaah!” to “Wooooow!
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Hmmm …
Charles F. Potter, author of Humanism: A New Religion : “Education is thus a most powerful ally to Humanism, and every public school is a school of Humanism. What can the theistic Sunday school, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?”