Do everything without complaining or arguing.
Philippians 2:14
Did you start a diet on January 1st? Perhaps you are trying a sugar-free diet or a fat-free diet. Maybe you're testing a simple-carbs-free diet. My sister is a vegetarian and consumes a meat-free diet.
These diets all have their merits, but what our mouths need is a complaint-free diet!
This probably sounds a bit extreme and if you're like me you are probably wondering, “If I can’t complain, what will I talk about?” It’s so easy to grumble because it seems so very few things in our lives ever go our way. It seems logical to gripe about all the mishaps in our days:
“The waiter at the restaurant didn’t get a single part of our order right.”
“The line at the grocery store took forever!”
“Traffic was terrible and some nut in a pickup cut me off!”
This week let's try to give up all complaining.
The complaint-free diet means no more indulging in grumbling.
It involves weeding out whining.
It means giving up griping and cutting out carping.
It’s going to be difficult, but there are benefits. In Philippians 2:14 Paul gave the instruction, “Do everything without complaining or arguing,” but in verse 15 he outlines the benefits of a complaint-free diet:
“so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe”
I see three benefits to a complaint-free diet:
1. We will become blameless and pure. Blameless means without fault; when we give up complaining, our lives will not be open to criticism. Pure means our lives will not be a mixture of good and evil.
2. We will be children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation. If we are not complaining, other people will be more likely to recognize that we belong to God. We will stand out in a perverse and corrupt society.
3. We will shine like stars in the universe. Without complaining, our light will shine brighter, we will be more able to point people to the Light of the world. Complaining will only dim our brightness.
Hopefully, as we concentrate on eliminating complaining from our vocabularies, we will make this a life-long practice. This new habit will clean up our characters, purify our attitudes, and polish up our witness.
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