Thursday, June 28, 2012

GRUMBLE OR GRATITUDE (Continuation of Sermon)

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"Do all things without grumbling or questioning, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation.”  Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. (Philippians 2:14-16)
       
Two words, twenty words, twenty thousand words…and for some people a tremendous percentage of their words are complaints. 

Sometimes the complaints are legitimate and yet for some people if there is nothing legitimate to complain about…they’ll make something up.

Do you know what a grumble is?  It is a blemish on your character.  It makes people talk about you and what they say is not favorable.   No one likes a complainer.  Even a complainer doesn’t like him or herself.

Let me tell you a story.  Since it is a particularly vivid example of complaining carried to the limit, let’s call it a vinegar vignette.  

It is truly full of sour and devoid of sweet, 

and there is no solution for a better life in it. 

I tell it so that if you find a part of yourself in it, you can stamp on this way of thinking and dig a hole and bury the whole miserable process.

One Tuesday morning a woman looking out her window saw her neighbor and had one of those spur of the moment thoughts. “I think I’ll make her a pie. 

I enjoy baking, and I’ve never really done anything nice for her.” So she baked one of her famous cherry pies and took it over.  The neighbor was indeed quite surprised and thanked her profusely.

Because her neighbor had liked the pie so much, the next week she decided she would bake her another pie. 

This time, as she gave her another pie, the neighbor grimaced and said, “Thank you, but you’re a day late.


The comment startled her but she decided that her neighbor must have had a bad day, or perhaps even a bad week.


 Therefore, the next week she decided she would brighten her neighbor’s life with yet another pie.

This time, her neighbor didn’t even say thank you.  Instead she commented, “Try using a little more sugar and don’t bake it so long, the crust on that last pie was a little too brown.  And, oh yes, I’d like apple instead of cherry the next time.”


The woman thought…she really does seem to be majoring in bad moods, but I’ll still bake her another pie...just not right now…because I can’t believe how busy a week I have coming up.

The next Tuesday, as she hurried out her front door, she heard her neighbor shouting, “Where’s my pie?”

The selfish and self-centered are good at complaining. 

They bring to the art of finding fault a new kind of competence. 

And if they continue this me-first attitude, they will soon have some real reasons to complain. 

All the enemies they will have made.

Do you have a persecution complex? 

Do you feel everyone is out to get you? 

Every morning as you get out of bed do you remind yourself that someone out there is making a note to say something mean about you to someone else or when they see you, ignore you, or….well, if you do have a persecution complex, this is exactly what you do. 

But beware, the worse is yet to come.  If you complain about how people are treating you …and do it for too long a time, you will have created a self-fulfilling prophesy.  

But would you rather have a thanksgiving complex? 

Would you like to wake up every morning and believe that people really haven’t had even one single thought about hurting you or ignoring you?  

Well, try this, the results will amaze you!  Meet and greet the world in a better, brighter, nicer frame of mind.  You say, impossible! you are grumpy by nature.  That’s doubtful.  I don’t believe you were born that way – it took practice.  So practice smiling…until it no longer feels like a mask.  Then,  people really won’t talk badly about you or ignore you as much as they used to…or move to the other side of the room to avoid you and your bad moods.…because you really won’t have so many of these bad moods any more.
(to be continued) 

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