“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”— Abraham Lincoln “Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.”—Zig Ziglar
These two quotes ended up making me write about something that had been weighing on my mind heavily lately. Complaining.
Complaining, to me, is a learned behavior. I don’t think that God created us to be complainers in any way.
So I am praying that God retrains me, and helps me to unlearn things that I have taught myself. Like complaining.
It is just as easy to praise, as it is to complain about anything. And if I can learn to praise before I complain then I’ll never learn how to complain, because I will be so busy in praise.
That’s the tricky thing about our human nature. We convince ourselves that we’re entitled to these things that we never needed anyway. Somehow, somewhere, we told ourselves it’s okay to be unhappy and to express that unhappiness in complete discontent, nonstop complaining.
Well it’s not.
There’s nothing okay about complaining. We were created to praise so when we do anything other than that, we’re in the wrong. Way in the wrong. And it’s time to get out of it.
It’s time to free ourselves from the bondage of complaining. Because that’s what it is.
Have you ever noticed that?
When you begin a pattern of constant complaining it becomes easier and easier to complain about everything. And some part of you feels trapped to complaining. Before you know it, you have a lifestyle of complaining.
Do you want to live a life complaining?
What if for every complaint God took something away? How many of us would be left with anything?
We have to seriously think about that. And if you’re answer makes you nervous, you’ve got some reconditioning of your mind to do. As many of us do.
I’d just hate to get to Heaven and for God to say, “Chanel you lived 80 years. All in all, I had 100 years of blessings stored up dependent upon your amount of praise. You ended up spending 10 years worrying, and 30 complaining. Your worry and complaining took such a toll on you that you could only live 80 years in that state.”
I really need God to reprocess my mind to be happy before sad. To praise before I complain. Because just as much as I can complain about going to run that errand, I could so much easier be happy to help first.
I guess mainly what I’m saying is that we need to unlearn some of the lessons that the world taught us. Things of the world are for the world. Spiritual things need a spiritual approach.
Complaining is a worldly solution, that is still in itself a problem.
But praise, praise is the solvent to all things.