Without grumbling and complaining

My watch alarm buzzed incessantly, and I tried in vain to shush it. I was confused and disoriented, grumbling and complaining. My room was dark, and neither dog had stirred.

“Oh, that’s right. Time change weekend. Ugh.” While I enjoy the long evenings Daylight Saving Time brings, I’m not a morning person, and I grumbled to myself, reluctantly leaving my warm bed to start the day. I woke up out of sorts. Not sick. Not worried. Just grumpy.

Murmuring and complaining to start the day

Yesterday had been challenging. My neighbor’s dogs had escaped their enclosure – again -and my friend Elaine and I walked our four dogs right into the chaos. I’m used to walking two dogs, and Bernie, my dachshund who thinks he is a doberman pinscher, wears a harness with a handle on it so I can grab him before he does something stupid. But in the havoc created by the two untethered dogs, I couldn’t get a handhold on the harness, so my fifteen pound menace was snarling and growling at two dogs five times his size.  And my geriatric hound is skittish anyway, so she wrapped her leash behind me as if I could magically protect her. 

We soon had a mass of dogs and a tangle of leads. A quick-thinking neighbor ran off the unattended dogs. But Bernie’s best (and most expensive) leash was damaged in the melee. It was the third time this week the dogs had escaped. I wanted to give the owner of the strays a lecture on responsible canine management. But my high school Spanish was not up to the task. I guess grumbling and complaining are best done in one’s first language. 

Out of Sorts from the beginning

Daylight Saving Time means spring is on the way, so I decided to change Bernie to his summer harness. It’s lighter weight and bright yellow, which helps me spot him when he’s the offending canine running amok through the neighborhood. But the harness looked dirty, though I remembered washing it before putting it away last fall.

My mood did not improve when I realized there was no milk for cereal. I got a bit carried away making yogurt, a recent obsession for me. Last night’s basketball game had been a disaster that made me regret staying up to watch it.

Where’s my pen?

And I couldn’t find THE pen I was looking for. Mind you, I have dozens. But THE one I wanted for my journal this morning? Was it in the computer bag? Or the car? I just had it yesterday.

I settled into my chair and pulled out my Bible and journal and started to turn on Lectio 365. And I heard Holy Spirit. “Do all things without grumbling and complaining.” Yikes. That was my New Year’s Resolution. I’ve been doing ok most days. But not THIS MORNING. I was sitting in a comfy chair with Bernie in my lap, Daisy at my feet. Good coffee in a nice mug and a bagel nearby. And I was grumpy and out of sorts over nothing.

I rolled my eyes at my own attitude. Yes, Holy Spirit, I’ve already messed up. I woke up complaining. I repent. I’m sorry.

He nudged again. “The Blood covers that too. You’re forgiven. Are you ready to reframe?”

Reframing instead of grumbling

Reframing sounded like a good idea at this point. I didn’t want to go to worship in the kind of mood I was in right now. Let’s see. I woke up in a warm bed. Not in a war zone. The time change means I can enjoy longer evening walks, and that fire pit season is near. The gray clouds will hopefully bring rain, a good thing for a drought.

The leash? It held even though the safety broke. And it’s a good brand, and under warranty. They’ll make it good. Bernie and Daisy were both safe and uninjured, as were Elaine’s dogs. More importantly, so were Elaine and I. No one fell. There were no dog bites or broken bones, even though I ended up on my knees on the pavement, frantically untangling leads while yelling at the two offending pooches to get lost. That’s not the image I want to present to the neighborhood.

 

You’re grumbling and complaining about that? 

The basketball game? Really? Was I going to let the outcome of a silly game affect your mood? A bunch of teenagers running up and down a court throwing a ball at a hoop? They’re getting paid handsomely to care. I’m not. There’s real suffering in the world.

The pen? I had it just the other day. I’m sure it’s somewhere in the house. I have others. Again, I shouldn’t let a metal tube filled with ink determine my mood.

Why am I grumbling and complaining ? 

I pulled a different pen from the drawer. The nib glided smoothly across the page of the notebook in a cheerful pink ink that made me smile. It was a nice surprise on a dreary morning.

I forget God’s blessings when I am under stress. Too often, I have an attitude that screams, “what have you done for me lately?” The problem is, if I give in to murmuring and complaining, I’m not the only one it affects. My sour mood will rub off on others around me. Grumpiness is more contagious than the flu.

The children of Israel were just days past the miracle of the Exodus. They had seen the Egyptian army decimated before their eyes, chariots and dead soldiers washing up in the wake of the Red Sea. But when they traveled just a few miles without finding drinkable water, they grumbled against Moses and Aaron.

 

What has God done for me lately?

They had a much larger problem than I had the first morning of Daylight Saving Time. Water is necessary to survive, and a million people need a lot of it. It wasn’t wrong to point out the issue. But instead of grumbling, they could have asked Moses and Aaron for a solution. Or they could have prayed to God who had drowned the Egyptian army, instead of defaulting to grumbling and complaining, and threatening to stone Moses. 

They repeated this pattern throughout their trek through the wilderness. They never seemed to understand that God brought them into the desert, and He would take care of them.

My attitude is showing.

I’m guilty of the same attitude. God has always shown up for me. Often, I don’t like His timing or His method. But He has never let me down. Yet, when things don’t go my way, I complain about it to anyone who will listen. God isn’t opposed to our telling Him our troubles. Just read the Psalms to see that David spent a good part of his life oscillating between “The Lord is my shepherd” and “No one cares if I live or die.” But when we grumble, we stir up negativity in those around us.

I want to be someone who brings joy to people, not dissension and dissatisfaction. Paul experienced extreme deprivation. He was beaten, stoned, and left for dead, shipwrecked, and snake bitten. But he declared, “I have learned to be content.” I want to model contentment with my words and actions, not dissatisfaction. I’ve got a long way to go. But God is making me aware. And I hope I’m a good student.

Grumbling and complaining denies the big picture

There’s one other lesson that God taught me the first morning of Daylight Saving Time. If God never blessed me again, never answered another prayer, I have no grounds to complain. Habukkuk, a prophet who agonized as he watched an army amassing to attack his homeland while crops failed and people went hungry, declared that, in it all, “yet I will praise Him.“

Gratitude is about the big picture, the eternal picture. What Habakkuk and other scripture writers understood is that this temporal world is not all there is. When I get caught up in the minutiae of daily problems, grumbling is a natural byproduct. But when I learn to see that God is good and His plan is bigger even than my lifetime. I can do all things without grumbling and complaining.