I Can't Complain...But I Do.

     I've asked people how they were doing and some reply, "I can't complain, nobody would listen anyway." That's rather oxymoronic, isn't it? Because they are saying they can't complain, yet they follow that statement up with a complaint!

     Recently, I've tried to make myself more cognizant of my own complaining. The Bible records the Israelite people wandering the desert for 40 years, which most of us wouldn't have enjoyed either, but God did supply manna from heaven, quail for meat, water from rocks, and no one's clothes wore out! Deuteronomy 8:4 explains it like this, "Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years." 

      My husband and I have talked about this 40 year trek and wondered how the Israelites, who had been led out of slavery from the Egyptians by God, could have so much to complain about. God even used a miracle to guide them as noted in Exodus 13:21, "By day the LORD went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, so that they could travel by day or night." 

     But just like the Israelites, we are all human and thus have the sin of our father Adam upon us. Sin causes us to be unsatisfied. Sin tells us that there is something that God is keeping from us and that without it, we will remain unfulfilled. But what sin doesn't tell us, is that we can be filled with the living water of life that quenches all our thirsts, according to John 7:37-39, "On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, 'Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.'"

     So on Pentecost, Jesus returned to be with Father God and left the Holy Spirit of God to guide and direct His believers here on Earth. Jesus Christ left us provisions and protection, just as God did for the Israelites in their desert march, so I can't complain...but I do. Why? Romans 7:19 notes Apostle Paul's same complaint, "For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing." 

     It's a complaint that is thousands of years old, "I want to do good, but I can't seem to achieve it." Humans are limited beings, and without the Holy Spirit bringing His power into our lives we can do nothing of eternal significance. Even Jesus had to be indwelled by the Holy Spirit before He could do the miracles He performed on Earth as mentioned in Acts 10:38, "...how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him." 

     If I continue to try to produce the Fruit of the Holy Spirit, which is listed in Galatians 5:22-23 as "love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control," in my own human/fleshly power, I'll continue to have something to complain about. Because the Bible tells us, "For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want," (Galatians 5:17). 

     If we are aligned with God's purpose for our lives and ask the Holy Spirit to direct our actions, deeds, and thoughts, we will no longer be "in conflict" with the Holy Spirit and God's will for our lives. Thus, we can taste the sweet fruit of the Spirit and will no longer need to complain about God's provision, protection, and purpose. Will we be perfect at this juncture? No, not in this lifetime, but we can pray daily for God's way and then walk in it, until the day He takes us home. Then the mortal will put on the immortal and the struggle against sin and flesh will be behind us, no more complaints!  

1 Corinthians 15:53

For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die;

our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies.

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