Grumbling, Murmuring, and Complaining
From TABLETALK
When my kids were young, my wife and I taught them a little song to help them check their attitude. It went like this:
Why complain about your clothes
and your shoes,
Why complain about your teacher
and her rules,
Why complain when so many have
no home,
Why complain when you have one
of your own?
Just be thankful for the good things
that you’ve got.
I wish I could say that this song was a cure-all for our children’s grumbling, murmuring, and complaining, but it was not. We expect kids to complain. But why do we adults—particularly those of us who believe in the sovereignty of God—grumble about our circumstances? Like children, we grouse about everything from the weather to the price of a hamburger to the results of an athletic competition.
Complaining began in the garden of Eden. Satan, appearing as a serpent, came to Eve one day and asked, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” (Gen. 3:1). This was a lie as well as a thinly veiled complaint against God’s character and providence. Adam, standing nearby, swallowed Satan’s lie, ate the forbidden fruit, and immediately fell to grumbling about both God and Eve: “The woman whom you [God] gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate” (v. 12, emphasis added). In Adam’s fall, we sinned all and became chronic complainers.
The Old Testament books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy document the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to the promised land. Despite God’s provision in the wilderness, the people of Israel constantly griped about the difficulties of the journey. Just three days after the miracle at the Red Sea, at the waters of Marah, “the people grumbled against Moses, saying, ‘What shall we drink?’” (Ex. 15:24). Soon they grew hungry and cried out, “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full” (16:3). Ironically, Egypt—a place of enslavement, torture, and death for thousands of Israelites—now seemed like Shangri-La to God’s people. “Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” they asked (Num. 14:3). Griping betrayed the Israelites’ lack of trust not only in Moses but in the love and plan of God.
Gratitude combats griping and serves as a powerful testimony.
Now, being honest about pain is not necessarily complaining. During times of suffering, it is natural and even healthy to tell someone: “I am hurting. This is hard.” We want our children to let us know when they are injured, afraid, or worried. Similarly, God wants us to tell Him about our problems. Doing so is not sinning; it is healing. There are dozens of examples of lament in the Scriptures. David writes in Psalm 142, for example: “With my voice I cry out to the Lord; with my voice I plead for mercy to the Lord. I pour out my complaint before him; I tell my trouble before him” (vv. 1–2). Job prays during his time of trial: “I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul” (Job 10:1). An entire book of the Bible (Lamentations) proves that complaining to God is a good and godly thing.
But complaining about God and grumbling about how He chooses to order our lives is a serious sin. The Apostle Paul, referring to the Israelites in the wilderness, warns us, “We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer” (1 Cor. 10:9–10). Grousing about the traffic, the heat and humidity, or the demands of our job is not an “acceptable sin,” but is rather an accusation that God is not governing His world very well.
According to the Westminster Larger Catechism, one of the sins forbidden by the third commandment is “murmuring and quarreling at . . . God’s decrees and providences” (Q&A 113). Grumbling about our circumstances is contrary, the catechism says, to our “holy profession” (Q&A 112). It besmirches the name of God and damages our witness to unbelievers. That is why Paul writes, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:14–15). Those outside Christ may grumble like children, but we who know Christ should be different. We should speak of “whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, [and] whatever is commendable” (Phil. 4:8). We should trust that even in times of suffering, God is working “all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11).
What should we do to stop complaining? Two action steps come to mind. First, look to Jesus. If anyone in history could have justifiably complained about his circumstances, it was Jesus Christ. He was “despised and rejected” by those He came to save, yet “he opened not his mouth” (Isa. 53:3, 7). “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return” (1 Peter 2:23). Jesus lived a life of perfect surrender to the will of God and paid the penalty for our sins, even the sin of grumbling. Look to the cross, believe the gospel, and be changed. Second, give thanks throughout the day—both to God and to those around you—even when things don’t go your way. In this crooked and twisted generation, gratitude combats griping and serves as a powerful testimony of the reality of the gospel. That little song that we taught our kids had it right: “Just be thankful for the good things that you’ve got.”
Rev. Michael E. Osborne is dean of students and director of field education and placement at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Fla.,
and author of Surviving Ministry.
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