Don’t you just love being around negative, griping people? (In case, you can’t see it I have my tongue fully in my cheek).
You could be having a fully alive morning and then meet someone whose very presence seems to put a damper on it. You walk through the door into your office or a meeting and immediately you can tell “that person” is in the room. The joviality and ease of the room is missing. Or worse, you may already be in the room, laughing and having a nice relaxing moment with colleagues and then “that person” walks in and it seems like something has sucked out all the air in the room. Gone is the joviality. Gone is the ease of conversation. Gone is the sense of anticipation of a good and productive meeting.
I’m not very tolerant of negative, griping people. I avoid them like a plague if possible. I hate to admit that I will sometimes take the long way around rather than come face to face with a “Debby Downer” or a “Frowning Fred.” Neither of them seem to have a good thing to say and seem to only cling and hang on with helpless rambling.
Numbers 16-17 is one of those passages of Scripture which makes perfect sense and we can relate to. Several of the men (Levites) decided they didn’t quite like Moses and Aaron’s leadership. They couldn’t understand why they had to listen to and do what Moses said. So they rebelled. Bad thing to do. Moses was God’s appointed leader and to take this approach was not going to turn out well for them. Long story short: it didn’t. The earth swallowed them up. Even after that show-and-tell, the very next morning they began muttering against Moses and Aaron again. What is wrong with those people? They just had a vivid demonstration of God’s judgment as He reacted to their rebellion and now they are at it again. Needless to say, it did not turn out well for them either.
There are several lessons to be learned in these two chapters. One is the stupidity of complaining against God’s work. Perhaps the most prominent is that God’s grace is seen as Aaron stands between those being destroyed and those kept alive by his actions. It is a great picture of a future time when someone who would be on a hill called Calvary and He would stand in the gap and take God’s judgment for sin on His shoulders.
Now THAT is amazing grace!
Amazing grace, indeed, Bill! We don’t deserve His grace nor can we earn it as I wrote in my reflection today. Praying that we can build others up in the name of Jesus, not tear them down by our negative/whining attitudes when things don’t go our way.
Blessings!
I have made that a mission of mine Martha: to build up by being positive. I am 98% a positive person anyway, but I want to be fully there.
This comes from a list of hope word sayings that are in my Bible:
“When your level of complaining is at an all-time high, it could mean that your level of praise is at an all-time low.”
We have been given the gift of amazing grace by a loving Father, that alone should always squash out our complaining. Without grace, nothing else matters.
I like that quote Gail! And you are right. God’s amazing grace should squash our complaining.
Whining… complaining… negativity…
I don’t like to listen to it coming from others, but I have allowed myself to get pushed into the pit of despair a time or two. Approaching 50 this year and not to make light of menopause, but I think I am going through my own set of physiological changes. Some days I am doing well and some days I find myself whining, complaining, and being negative about things that should not be impacting me as they are.
So how does this correlate? some of my whining, complaining, and negativity is around ministries I am currently involved with. I allow frustration to build where it shouldn’t. Thankfully, I have not gone off the deep end and reacted beyond the safety of the walls of my home, but this does tend to cause some angst within the household.
All that said, good to be reminded that I am not the one that needs to be in control. In the grand plan of God, I only have to be a willing participant. God will provide the resource, the strength, the power, and the appointments. I just need to prepare where I can and show up.
Thanks for the vulnerable post Ryan. It is easy to get sucked into that hole of despair filled with complaining and griping and negativity. That is where a friend is such a wise thing to have. But you have also given the solution: God and His grand plan. May you find Him sufficient.