Mmm!! It's a beautiful thunderstorm-y morning! A perfect reminder of how beautiful and mighty is the Lord and how He loves us in the best ways! I feel so loved when I have a rainy quiet time! I LOVE rain! It's a beautiful thing and it makes a cup of coffee taste extra delightful.
And while I am so thankful and overjoyed in this moment of being cozied into my couch with a cup of coffee and scripture all set out before me, whilst my walls and windows rattle at the thunder, what has prompted me to start this post is complaining.
I don't really have a starting point since what I want to do is complain about all the people that complain. But I'm so content in this moment that I don't want a single negative thought to ruin it.
I think it's a tricky subject and so I shall handle as gently as I know how.
In the last few years, mostly since coming to college, I have been pretty convicted on the negative things that come out of my mouth on account they are usually a result of the negative things existing in my heart. In my high school years, both pre and post my Jesus encounter, I was probably the most negative, complaining person out there. My catch phrase was, "sad day" and all of my classmates at North Star Academy could probably tell you that it wasn't me if "sad day" wasn't said at least once or twice in a single sentence. I was never especially thankful for my life circumstances, especially since I didn't really think I had much to be thankful for my senior year of high school, which was probably the peak of my negativity. I think I mostly justified my negative attitude because my situation seemed painful enough to deserve it.
But here's the deal, I didn't have all that many friends. I tell my current friends this sometimes and they don't usually believe me. But making friends was a really big struggle for me in the past. I could excuse it to the fact that I was home schooled, but I had enough exposure to other kids to have made friends, had I the talent for it.
I'd like to say that I wasn't a socially awkward person, but maybe I was. However, my current theory to my lack of friends was that I was too much of a complainer and no one wanted to be around Negative Nelly for too long. Which makes sense, given that I don't like to be around complaining Johnny Rainclouds for too long either.
The Lord was so gracious to me in that time, though, because I did have a friend or two that stuck around and poured Jesus into my heart and gave me things for which I could be thankful. I have one best friend who has stuck it out with me since we were 2 and 3 and I don't deserve her, but I'm ever so thankful for her anyways.
Upon coming to college and having no friends and not being good at making friends....I basically just existed without friends. Fortunately for me, my sister is probably the sweetest someone to have ever walked the campus sidewalks and she graciously permitted me to be in her presence and she shared her friends with me as well as exemplified the beauty of not complaining.
After a semester of being around "Christians" whose fruits of the spirit left something to be desired and feeling quite empty myself, I realized that even in the time since encountering Jesus, I had been living off the fruits of other believers lives, their joy, their patience, their peace, that I wasn't really planting it or growing it in my own life and it was high time I let the Lord change my heart.
It took several months of intentional surrender and seeking the Lord to make me a person made beautiful by what was on the inside.
It took a lot to learn to control my tongue and not find something to complain about for everything. During that time I realized, people bond by complaining. In class, the way to talk to your classmates is to be like, "Ughh... we have homework due Friday" "ugh sucks" or "oh my gosh it's so hot in here" "yeah it's awful" or "Ugh rain" or "Ugh..the sun is too bright." If it's sunny it's too hot, if it's cloudy than it's too gloomy. If it's raining than it's yucky, if it's snowing it's terrible, if someone says it's nice, than it sucks to have be in class.
You see it in your facebook feed all the time, "Don't wanna go to class today..this sucks"
"6 hour shift at work today..ugh" "Didn't sleep last night..ugh" "it's raining...ugh"
Okay, first of all, I'm really sorry that 'sucks' ever showed up in my blog. I hate that word and I try not to let it be in my own vocabulary as much as possible. But, you get my point... this world is impossible to please. Even Christians have a lot to complain about, it seems, and I haven't exactly found it to be encouraging thus far.
It's tricky, like I said, because I feel like I'm complaining about people complaining...which is not helpful on any level.
But seriously, it's like in Monsters Inc. when they start out powering the city by the screams of scared young children and it keeps the city going. But then they find out that laughter is a better form of energy and they switch over to trying to make the children laugh rather than scare them.
Complaining may give you something to get a conversation started with a co-worker or a classmate, it may help you to fit in around your friends, it may make you seem pretty cool when you complain about something and everyone agrees in some approving way "OH MY GOSH YES I KNOW RIGHT!" But, it's.... it's negative.
When I moved to Iowa City, I sensed the spiritual darkness... the heaviness, almost right away. And one morning in a desperate search for some encouraging words I found myself in Philippines 2 that starts with, "If there is any encouragement in being united with Christ Jesus..." I read those words and was like, "If there is an 'if" then there is a 'then'." And I found what it was.
"Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky"
I miss the stars. I grew up out in the middle of corn and bean fields and the only lights to worry about were the neighbor's yard lights....but they were like half a mile away anyways and my siblings, friends, cousins and I would spend summer night after summer night marveling at the stars from our trampoline or the kitchen roof (which isn't so steep). I live in the city now, and the stars are a little less visible with the light, but the ones I do see, I love.
I think it's a beautiful thing that the act of not complaining can be significant enough that you stick out like a star in the night sky. Not complaining is so counter-cultural to our world. And it's not just joining in the coffee pot conversation, speaking thankfulness words are just... soothing.
I don't consider myself to be a good example of someone who doesn't complain. Goodness knows I have my vent sessions with my friends more often than I should. Thankfully my friends love Jesus and they usually always have some truth to speak back to me and point out the things I can be thankful for even when the situation I'm venting about isn't exactly ideal. I do the same for them. We look for Truth together, as if it were some grand treasure hunt or I Spy.
I think complaining is a lot more dangerous, especially for believers, than we may even realize. It makes us so we can't see. When we complain, we can't see Truth, we can't see joy, we can't see peace, we can't see light... we can't see Jesus.
Like in starwars when Obi Wan puts the helmet on Luke..
And Luke is like, "With the blast shield down I can't see anything. How am I supposed to fight?"
(Ignore the part about trusting your feelings that comes after that)
Basically, if complaining was the blast shield, you can't really fight. You can't fight the spiritual darkness if you complain, all you do is join it. (You know, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em type deal).
We try to blend in and fit in with our friends and co-workers and classmates and strangers by complaining about whatever little anything we can find that might be possibly awful.
But that's just it, we're blending in.
How are people supposed to see the light of Jesus when we hide it under a bushel? (Sorry sunday school teachers, we shouted 'no' as children, but yeah, we're gonna hide it. Maybs we'll bring it out when Jesus comes).
It's so funny, though, because as believers we gather around our little Bible studies and talk about how being a Christian is so hard, and sharing Jesus with our friends is so hard, and looking like a loser is so hard.... and then we give ourselves pats on the back being like, " You put an anti-abortion bumper sticker on your car, good job!" or "way to not cuss when you stubbed your toe!" or "I didn't honk when that guy cut me off in traffic!" As if we've accomplished something there.
You know, speaking encouraging things isn't as hard as it sounds when you marinate yourself in Jesus for a little bit every now and again.
Last fall semester I ran my little experiment in my classes to see what would happen. I was gonna 1) Say hello to whom ever I sat by in class and ask them how their day was going
2) try to say something positive about what ever they say negative.
That was fun! If your curious to know how that experiment turned out, I ended up with friends in my classes. Friends who wanted to share notes with me if I missed them and often asked after my day as well. They weren't believers, but they didn't seem to mind that I was and even encouraged me in my faith by saying things like, "good for you, keep being bold."
Whaaaat? Living counter-culturally and not looking like a freak?
As it turns out, this world is starving for things that aren't negative and heavy and heart wrenching.
I recently found a list of life goals I made back in 2007. One of the things I had on there was, "make a difference some where or have an impact on someone." I'm not sure I'll ever know if I accomplish that one until I get to heaven, but I don't know that people who don't complain and speak truth into my life are some of the most impactful people I've met. The times people have caught me mid-sentence and showed me where I could be thankful have made such a lasting impression on my heart, as if they dug a pool and filled it with Jesus.
I guess mostly, I want to implore my fellow believers to find less things to complain about and more things to be thankful for. I love you, truly, but we gotta get past this whole complain-to-make-friends-and-look-cool thing. It's not as affective Gospel sharing as you might think. Don't try to be friends with people, try to be Jesus with people. Like.. love them. And build them up. And encourage them.
Think happy thoughts, they lift you into the air!
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