Whiner!

 

Wake the Faith up Slayer… This is Garth Heckman with the David Alliance and you can reach me at

TDAgiantslayer@gmail.com 

 

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I will be honest, I am friends with drug dealers, gang bangers, liars, murderers and more… but I truly have a hard time being friends with one particular kind of person… wanna guess who that is?

 

 

but I truly have a hard time being friends with one particular kind of person… wanna guess who that is?

 

Pastor John Beehler, of Bethel Presbyterian Church, once gave a sermon in which he said, “You all know that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. Do you know what he did on the eighth day? He started answering complaints.”

Whiners are all over the bible, grumblers, complainers… 

  -  laborers in the vineyard whining about wages (Matthew 20:1-16), 

  -   the scribes and Pharisees complaining about the disciples eating and drinking with sinners (Luke 5:30), 

  -  Martha about laboring in the kitchen while Mary sits and listens to Jesus (Luke 10:38-42).

  -  The father complaining that the disciples could not heal his son

 

there are mainly three Hebrew and two Greek words that are translated into the English for “complain,” “grumble,” “murmur,” and “whine.” 

 

What does God think of whiners? 

God hates one who sows discord (Proverbs. 6:19). 

Proverbs 16:28
A froward man soweth strife: and a whisperer separateth chief friends.

Proverbs 22:10
Cast out the scorner, and contention shall go out; yea, strife and reproach shall cease.

 

In fact this is exactly what God tells us in his word to do… Let us follow the things which make for peace and let all things be done for enlightenment (Romans 14:19; 1 Corinthians 14:26)

 

 

Did you know that most complaining and whining can be examined and categorized by the nature of the dissatisfaction and by our motivation for expressing it. 

Complaining involves voicing fair and legitimate dissatisfactions, concerns and insights with the goal of attaining a resolution or remedy. 

Hey I think we have all complained at a restaurant about service, food or noise or even my wife’s favorite… the temperature… but is typically done in a fashion to make things better.  

 

When we voice legitimate dissatisfactions but do so without the goal of attaining a resolution we are merely venting, grumbling- And when the dissatisfactions we voice are trivial or inconsequential and not worthy of special attention, we are whining.

Whining is simply pointing out what we think is not fair with no other resolution than to have others pity us and serve our selfish needs. 

 

KEY POINTS

• Complaining involves voicing legitimate dissatisfaction, while whining is about something trivial, self centered.
• Complaining, venting, and whining have different effects on a person's psychology and emotions. I can complain and a person can actually be gracious and thankful that I did so. 

And in fact a persons ability or means to respond in an empathetic way mostly depends on wether or not they heard us whine or simply voice a sincere complaint. 

 

 

Eph. 4:30,31 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, outcry and slander, along with every form of malice. 

 

bitterness - harshness, acidity, anger, resentful 

rage - means a selfish outburst

Anger - we want someone punished for this.. its not fair

outcry - to shout, clamor or be against someone

Slander - Abusive or scurrilous language, blasphemy. From blasphemos; vilification.

Malice - bad language, depraved or to malign someone 

 

What happens when we do these things? We grieve the Holy Spirit and we lose intimacy with him.

 

Maybe you don’t experience the presence of God the way you want to because you simply whine too much. 

So as Paul says… get rid of it. This aint no bible verse but it has stood the test of time… if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.