Remember This When You’re Tempted to Complain
I will choose instead to praise God with my whole heart. I will focus my eyes not on my circumstances but on His strength, and I will walk out the Truth
So I spent last week teaching at a conference in Nepal attended by the most loving, passionate people I’ve ever met. Some of these folks traveled four days by bus—one way—to learn and to enjoy fellowship with others of like mind.
Traffic jam entering Kathmandu Valley 
Nepal’s steep and winding roads
It’s not a pleasure ride
I’ve traveled by bus here too. Believe me—it’s not a pleasure ride.
Let me explain:
Why do I tell you this?
Because the folks who traveled from far flung villages never uttered a word of complaint. They arrived wearing smiles, and those smiles grew day after day. The meeting room fairly exploded with honest-to-goodness laughter and joy during the worship times.
The leader of the group is a paraplegic. After I taught a session about unleashing the power of praise, he told me to read Psalm 103:1 because it’s special to him.
It says,
“Praise the LORD, I tell myself; with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name” (NLT).
Praise the LORD
This verse has been meaningful to me in the past, but it’s assumed new and more powerful meaning thanks to the opportunity to fellowship with these precious men and women.
My life is infinitely more easy than theirs and yet how quickly I complain about trivial things—a lukewarm shower, my car doesn’t have AC, autumn leaves are now littering my driveway and I’ll have to spend time sweeping or blowing them away when I return home, blah, blah, blah.
Perhaps teaching at this conference wasn’t for the registrants’ benefit. Perhaps it was for mine. God’s given me another opportunity to make truth practical. From now on, whenever my inner negative voices tell me I have a right to complain, I will say no.
I will choose instead to praise God with my whole heart. I will focus my eyes not on my circumstances but on His strength and beauty and wisdom and kindness, and I will walk out the Truth.
Oh, how I wish I could transport each of you here to experience what I’ve seen and heard and felt. I wish I could share photos and video with you, but protecting these folks makes that impossible.
Today marks the beginning of another conference—same teaching material to three times as many registrants as last week’s conference. Maybe God knows I still have more to learn.
Know you are loved,
Grace
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Thank you. This has touched my heart. I will be interceding for you.
Thanks for keeping on keeping on. To God be the Glory in everything we do. Some of us are too accustomed to thinking we can choose when we’re going to take it easy and/or do nothing……….not good. Praise the Lord.
Hi Marge. I just learned today that those conference attendees who came from the far flung regions have still not arrived at home. They’ve been on the road for six days already (as opposed to four). They’ve been hindered by landslides. Keep praying for their safety and endurance, please.
Wow, talk about our squeemy little hardships; yet, I guess everybody has a level that they live on.
Yes, it all seems relative. But my life looks like a party compared to most people’s lives, especially whose who live in such dire poverty and hardship as those I just spent time with. Wow–I have so very much for which to be thankful.