A Moment With Pastor Fred
Recently my dear mother-in-law shared with me five rules of contentment she came across. Wow! Are they convicting – and helpful in my struggle against grumbling. I posted them on the refrigerator door to remind me. They were originally written by an English pastor back in 1892. As we celebrate Thanksgiving this week, may these reminders help us not just to be thankful Thursday but the other 364 days of the year.
- Allow yourself to complain of nothing, not even the weather.
- Do not imagine yourself to be somewhere other than where you are.
- Do not compare your situation with that of anyone else.
- Never allow yourself to dwell on wishing this or that had happened.
- Never dwell on tomorrow. Remind yourself that tomorrow is in God’s hands, not yours. Remember, the Lord will provide.
Puritan Thomas Watson wrote, “Murmuring is no better than mutiny in the heart; it is a riling up against God. When the sea is rough and unquiet, it calls forth nothing but foam; when the heart is discontented, it calls for the foam of anger, impatience, and sometimes little better than blasphemy. Murmuring is nothing else but the foam that boils off from a discontented heart.”
Phil 2:14, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.”