Are Your Complaints Justified?
Human nature tends to over react when things don’t proceed in the anticipated way. People often complain, both for right reasons as well as for wrong expectations.
Some complaints are ways to cover up a person’s own inadequacy at a time when other solutions could and should have been tested and brought forth. Other complaints may appear justifiable, on the surface, and even have some validity if the complainer is being adversely affected by what is being complained about.
Biblical narratives abound with instances where major complaints are made to fellow humans, but also directly to God. Prophets intercede for the people they represent. A whole book in the Old Testament focuses on that - the Lamentations of Jeremiah. One significant category of the Psalms also pertains to laments to Jehovah, where a broken-hearted Psalmist addresses the deity on his own account, or on behalf of others in distress and need.
It is indeed very human for a person to complain when protection is lacking, when enemies are making plots, when other conditions are so adverse in life that there seems to be no end in sight, and no palpable help while those situations persist. The question “why” shall always be raised by humans, as long as ages roll. And that is perfectly alright if, indeed, one is seeking an honest answer or solution.
Dr. Augusto Curry, a renown Brazilian psychiatrist and influential thinker and author, makes an interesting point when he comments: “We suffer all the time for things which have not yet happened. More than 90% of the monsters we create shall never become real, but we are specialists in creating them.”
Most of the issues people complain about, relate to the results of their personal, bad choices. Some may complain about a physician who cannot heal them of some affliction, though the same physician had previously addressed some bad habits or vices that person must eradicate, but didn’t. Others may complain about a situation which unfolded in their life, when they had been forewarned of the consequences of certain actions of theirs, or lack of the same.
Complaints about circumstances may also be invalid, especially when circumstances will always change. Yet, one can be pro-active in altering their course. Still other complaints may lack validity for they relate to imagined situations, even unreal occurrences in life, instead of tangible, concrete realities.
The badness of others, the cruelty of many, distortions and dishonesty adversely affecting a person, are among the justifiable complaints to be raised, be that to a political representative, in a Court of law, or to others capable of improving conditions or seeking restitution on one’s behalf.
Most of all, one should always be careful of never complaining about God’s will for his or her life. His design is always good, acceptable, and perfect, even if not fully understood at first. God gladly hears our laments and provides His remedy!
October 29th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
I would love to hear more about your personal experience of trying to live out these things that we generally agree on. For example, when David writes some of his Psalms he doesn’t seem to be living free of worry as Jesus will encourage people later in Matthew’s records or as Paul will speak of in his letter to the Philippians. In my experience, it’s the struggle to pursue the end aims of these passages that are where most followers of Christ live.