A Moment With Pastor Fred

What is America’s favorite pastime?  No, I don’t think its baseball. I think its complaining. I was convicted by The Gospel Coalition’s article written by Greg Morse, “The Curse Under Our Breath. What Grumbling Sounds Like to God.” 

It seems little. A want unmet. It appears harmless at first– a sigh, a moan, a complaint. Morse uses the Israelites as an example. They had just been redeemed from Egypt. “Music sheets were passed around the Red Sea” – they sang of deliverance. “But who would have guessed that these same tongues would rot into a chorus of murmurs by the end of the same chapter?” They were thirsty. Water was discovered but it was bitter. Undrinkable. Instead of asking God to meet their need we read, “And the people grumbled against Moses,” Ex 15:24.  

The lesson? God desires for us to see what’s truly inside us. When we find ourselves kneeling by the bitter waters of God’s providence, what does he hear from us?” Moses corrected their thinking – their grumbling wasn’t really against him. “Your grumbling is not against us, but against the Lord,” Ex 16:8. Morse states, “To my shame – and to the glory of his patience, our God is more gracious than we are grumbling.” We need to starve our grumbling and feed our worship. Let us confess our sin and purpose to shine brightly in this troubled world.

“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,” Phil 2: 14-15.