complainers anonymous

I like to complain.

I also like to oversleep, overeat, gossip, slander, lie (if it makes me look better), think I'm better than others, stew in my anger, covet, be jealous, bicker, and withhold forgiveness.

But for some reason complaining just doesn't seem as bad -- especially when we call it "venting," or, worse still, wrap it in a holy-sounding cloak of "sharing burdens" or "fellowship."

Is complaining an excusable sin, if it's a sin at all?

That's a dangerous question.

But I think I know where to look for answers. Check out these references:

NT keyword search for "complain"

NT keyword search for "grumble"

And then examine the history of a complaining people in the Old Testament:

OT keyword search for "complain"

Somehow all of that seems to be missing the rubber stamp for my hobby of holy Christian "venting."

If there's a place for Christian complaining, it may be in prayer -- the same way that David and Job poured out their complaints (but note the way that they were put in their place by God's answers; also note the warning from Ecclesiastes 5:2).

Here's a brief exposition of the place of complaining in prayer, from a sermon by Pastor John Piper:

you can complain to the Lord. “With my voice I cry out to the Lord. . . . I pour out my complaint before him; I tell my trouble before him” (Psalm 142:1-2). Now here, again, language frustrates. So are you saying, Pastor John, that it is good to have a complaining heart toward God? No. Philippians 2:14: “Do all things without grumbling or questioning.” It’s not good to have a complaining heart. The heart should trust God in all his sweet and bitter providences. So why then do you say we should complain to the Lord? Because sometimes our hearts do complain about the circumstances God has given us, even though our hearts shouldn’t do this, and it is better to consciously direct it toward the Lord than to think he doesn’t see it. Acting like you are not complaining is hypocrisy and will make you a very phony, shallow, plastic person in the end.

In the words from William Cowper that Nate pointed out last week:

Have you no words! Ah, think again,
Words flow apace when you complain;
And fill your fellow-creature's ear
With the sad tale of all your care.

Were half the breath thus vainly spent,
To heav'n in supplication sent;
Your cheerful song would oft'ner be,
"Hear what the LORD has done for me!"

May we strive together to not be a complaining, grumbling people, but a people characterized by a grateful joy and hope that take the world by surprise.