How to overcome the easy slide from gratitude to grumbling

By Dean Collins

What’s the distance between grateful and grumpy?

Based on what I’ve seen, it’s not very far. You can judge yourself for yourself, but let me speak about my own situation.

For several years now I have daily named, and often written down, a list of reasons I’m thankful. Yet (hopefully less and less often) when I’m away from my quiet prayers and Scripture reading, I catch myself grumbling about some challenge or difficulties. It’s as if God had suddenly left the building and was nowhere to be found on the planet.

Great provision, great grumbling

This short distance between grateful and grumbling isn’t anything new. All the way back to the exodus story of deliverance we find this flaw in the devotion of God’s people to God. The chosen of God had just been led by an angel of God out of Egypt, journeying before a cloud moving behind them to make it impossible for the Egyptian army to see them. Just before that they had seen the sea parted so they could walk through two walls of water on dry ground. It’s difficult to imagine stronger, more visible evidence that God was with them and providing for them.

It’s difficult to imagine stronger evidence that God was with them.

And they were grateful. In fact their hearts were so full of gratitude that Moses and the worship band hit a G chord (a lot of worship songs are in G), and all of the children of Israel broke out in a worship song:

“The Lord is my strength and my song” was the opening verse. Everyone participated because everyone had experienced the same miracle and presence of God. Miriam grabbed a tambourine from the worship band and finished the song like this:

“Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea.”

I’m guessing no one complained when the refrain was repeated over and over.

And then someone said, “My throat is a little dry.” Maybe it was the dust from the chariots that made them thirsty after the travel. Maybe it was their enthusiastic singing. Maybe whoever was supposed to bring the bottled water forgot, and suddenly communion with God turned to complaints directed at God’s appointed leader.

The grumbling crowd quickly turned on Moses and asked, “Well, what are we going to drink?” Moses didn’t know how to solve this new problem, so he cried out to God. And God provided a solution. This cycle of gratitude when God provided followed by grumbling if there were even a few moments of challenge would continue throughout the forty years of wilderness wandering.

Great love, daily surrender

All of human history suggests that people, including those who follow Jesus, often fall into the quickly grumbling crowd if they encounter challenges. But our embarrassing complaints don’t change God’s love for us. His love is new every morning as is his faithfulness.

The apostle Paul felt and witnessed God’s faithfulness in how he was used to spread the gospel far and wide. Paul also had many dramatic and difficult personal experiences that resulted in physical pain. Yet he never gave into grumbling. I believe this is because he was serious in his surrender of his old self and his flesh. You hear it when he said, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

Paul never gave into grumbling because he was serious in his surrender.

Paul in many places reminds us of a practice that will help us in daily surrender. To the church in Thessalonica he said this: “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and in everything (even the hard times) give thanks.” Why make this our goal? Because, Paul added, this is God’s will for us. We don’t have to keep mindlessly searching for God’s will, because we have it. Rejoice, pray continuously, and express gratitude to God for what Jesus did on the cross for us that changes everything for all time.

The distance between gratitude and grumbling will expand as we fill the space with humble and daily surrender.

Your time with God’s Word
Exodus‬ ‭14:19-20, 30-31‬; ‭15:2, 6-7, 11, 13, 17-21, 24-26; Psalm‬ ‭100:4-5‬; 1 Thessalonians‬ ‭5:16-18‬ ‭ESV

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Photo sby Nathan Dumlao and Jon Tyson on Unsplash