more on complaining...

Last week's lesson from The Journey... recognizing complaining as a sin... on further examination... I see that it is when we complain to each other... or to our leaders... that God becomes angry...

There is One to whom we can legitimately take our complaint... when we have built a relationship with Him... and that is the Lord Himself...

When we turn out complaint into prayer... He receives it... hears it... convicts... and changes our perspective...

This is what Moses exemplified so well...

Moses heard the people weeping throughout their clans, everyone at the door of his tent. And the anger of the Lord blazed hotly, and Moses was displeased. Moses said to the Lord, "Why have you dealt ill with your servant? And why have I not found favor in your sight, that you lay the burden of all this people on me? Did I conceive all this people? Did I give them birth, that you should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom, as a nurse carries a nursing child,' to the land that you swore to give their fathers?..."

Numbers 11:10-12 ESV

When you read on... you find God's anger did not burn against Moses... He had compassion on Him... He empowered additional leaders to help Moses carry the burden of the people...

Complaining is sin... when we carry it to one another... but when we take it to God... it is prayer...

Rick Warren calls this "venting vertically"...

We too... need to take our grumblings... complaints... to the only One who can do something about it... not to our friends... or family...

Cry out to Him... follow the example of Moses... and the psalmists... turn your complaint... into prayer...

I cry aloud to the Lord;

I lift up my voice to the Lord for mercy.

I pour out my complaint before him;

before him I tell my trouble.

Psalm 142:1-2