GRUMBLING

From the time Moses went back to Egypt until after they were settled in the promised land, a constant murmuring was heard in the camp of Israel. They were a nation of grumblers. If things were not just right, they would grumble against Moses and against the LORD. They grumbled about the work, the water, the food, the leadership, the desert, the giants in the land and it went on and on and on for more than forty years.

Having seen this characteristic in God's people Israel after they had been redeemed, we should look carefully at ourselves. After all, we are all human and what is a problem to one person is often a problem to more of us, though it is sometimes hard to see it in ourselves.

Take note of the tone of your conversation next time you find yourself talking about someone else. Are we praising them, planning encouragement or criticizing and complaining? Does it make a difference whether we think they deserve our criticisms or not? Israel seemed to think that Moses deserved their grumblings - and yet how wrong they were!

The bottom line is that God does not like us grumbling. It is a sin. Let's remove it from our lives and be positive. Let's encourage instead of complain, and share our needs with God instead of gossiping about things that have gone wrong.

Are you humbly grateful or grumbly hateful?

Robert Prins [Auckland - Pakuranga - (NZ)]