Rabbit trails & soap boxes...but not really

So I seem to wandering from the point...I have don't have any adoption news for you, but in the midst of filling out paperwork and dealing with red tape and jumping through hoops and the like, I read this post from a blog that Chris reads often. I thought it applied to my current mental/emotional state (just a little). It just reinforces in my mind that God's timing is perfect, His plan is perfect, and when I fail to realize and remember this, the complaining begins. When I cling to the truths that He is good AND He is in complete control AND He loves His children, peace and thankfulness take over...

What Happens When You Stop
Topic: Exhortation

The apostle Paul exhorts us to do all things "without murmuring or disputing." The result, he says, will be that we will be blameless and harmless, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, "among whom ye shine as lights in the world."

How do obedient Christians stand out? This is one of one of the central duties assigned to us. We are described as the light of the world. How should we then seek to have that light shine brightly? Well, not to put too fine a point on it—stop whining. Stop complaining. Stop murmuring. Stop muttering under your breath.

What is the backdrop of this? If we are to shine like stars, then what is the blackness against which we shine? What is the crooked and perverse blackness? It is the spirit of discontent, that of murmuring about everything. Whatever non-believers complain about without thinking, that is an opportunity for contrast.

All right, then, what do people complain about? They complain about their pay, their lack of recognition at work, their health, the weather, their kids, their parents, their husband, their wife, their lawn, the snow, their in-laws, their aches, their pains, the thermostat at the office, the president, the Congress, the Supreme Court, the city council, the potholes, the highway department, the rates at the swimming pool, the referees for Monday Night Football, their savings account, their sex life, their unmarried state and no sex life, their marriage overall, that they have a husband, that they don’t have a husband, that they have a wife, that they don’t have a wife, too hot, too cold, too tall, too short, too close to the window, not close enough to the window . . . you get the point.

This mentality is the air we breathe. It is difficult even to notice it. The one thing that makes it noticeable—starkly noticeable—is when somebody stops doing it. And so here is the exhortation from the apostle Paul—stop doing it.

Posted by Douglas Wilson - 9/9/2007 10:45:17 AM

"...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. 14 Do all things without complaining and disputing, 15 that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast the word of life..." Philippians 2:12-16