Over the last 5 years my tolerance for complaining has gotten down to about 0. I distance myself from people who have a habit of complaining about every little detail honestly because I feel like complaining can be contagious and I don't want to be a part of it because it is easy to slip into. I chalk my growing lack of tolerance up to going through a tragedy and through that, my perspective began to change and my tolerance for complaining waned.
I remember being a kid and would cry about something silly and my parents would say Amy, stop crying otherwise I will give you something good to cry about! What does that phrase even mean? I don't know. What were they going to give me to cry about? I never found out because I quit crying until I had something to cry about almost 5 years ago.
Out of that experience I now have a limited amount of tolerance for complaining. Obviously talking through difficult life things is different than complaining and is extremely necessary and needed to walk through life's difficult seasons but complaining is entirely different than talking through loss, death, divorce, affairs, sickness, financial troubles. The list of tough stuff people go through is long. Constant complaining is staying in the state of discontentment & dissatisfaction. Perspective in your situation, however, is what changes the outcome (or at the very least your mindset) of what you are talking about. Complaining, however, about it does not change a thing...in fact it can make it worse.
Phillipians 4 lays it out the right perspective for us. How to be content in all things. That doesn't mean we have to love what we are going through. It doesn't mean we should be fake about it or not confront what we are going through. It doesn't mean we shouldn't admit that we need help. We should do all those things but Paul does teach us how to go through everything as we are going through it. He tells us to rejoice in the Lord. To be thankful in all things. Thankful that we know God is with us and working all things for our good all the time. He teaches us to think on good things and not dwell on our complaints. He teaches us to lift our sights higher than what we see at the moment.
There was a 4 year season in our marriage where every single familiar "community" we had roots down in had been changed, uprooted or moved to another place. I hated. every. single. moment. I still am not fond of all the changes. A couple of years ago I went through an intensely lonely period of time due to all the changes and uprooting. All the changes (I hope) have passed and I still sit at a place where I don't have a great answer to how wonderful the change was. I don't have an answer that it was for a better sense of community and deeper relationships at all the new places God moved me to. It hasn't been an easy or clean answer wrapped perfectly with a happy ending bow (at least not yet). However, God is teaching me that sometimes He takes us through things to bring us closer to Him. Sometimes our perspective gets challenged a bit in order to see if we will complain or just surrender to Him and say, I don't get it but I am walking with you anyways and I trust that you have a bigger plan than I can see.
My perspective began to shift as God was speaking to me through every change I went through and through every lonely moment I felt. I wanted to throw my hands up and complain about the 'injustice' & discomfort of every change. Howevery, my new perspective began to allow me to ask a few hard questions of each change. Maybe I wasn't meant to be known in every circle I walked into anymore. Maybe I wasn't suppose to be comfortable in walking up to a group of friends who know me well in every place I walked into. Maybe God was keeping me from 'familiar' because He was doing something bigger than I could see or can see right now.
Jesus called Peter out of the boat to walk across water to Himself (Matt 14) all by himself. Peter wasn't walking with a bunch of friends. He was alone walking across the water to Jesus. The winds started blowing and Peter panicked, started to sink and cried out to Jesus and Jesus immediately reached out to Peter and caught him.
Peter was walking alone and knew nobody else could do what Jesus did for him. Jesus alone could meet Peter and catch him. Sometimes in our familiar groups of friends we unknowingly think they are the ones that can help us. Walk with us. Give us answers that maybe God alone has the answers to. Sometimes Jesus asks us to leave our familiar "boat" to walk outside our comforts and follow Him. Not complain but rather change our perspective and simply run to Him.
Don't get me wrong I love being in a nice comfortable, familiar group of friends who have known me forever and know everything about me just as much as the next girl. However, I am finding the longer I walk with God, He often gets us alone with Him to direct our steps better and through that allows us to hear His voice more clearly. He calls us to walk alone sometimes without all the comforts of a familiar scenery. No particular group in my life is familiar anymore and I'm learning to trust that God knows that and has a reason for it.
As I re read Phillipians 4 I am reminded about our perspective in every season of life. No matter what season you are in, no matter what you are going through, it might very well be that Jesus is calling you outside the boat to spend time with Him so He can be the one that leads and directs you. Through that experience our perspective can be like Paul when he says
"I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I
know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I
have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation,
whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength."
Through the whole chapter he repeatedly reveals the answer to how he learned to be content in every situation. He teaches us to change our perspective. Rejoice in the Lord, give thanksgiving, be content. He gives a list of things to think on like Truth, whatever is noble, pure, right, excellent trustworthy (among many other things) in order to be able to do all things through Christ. In other words, in all things, shift your perspective from complaining to thinking, trusting and walking with Jesus (with or without your group of people) and then you will be able to do all things that Christ has called you to.
God may I always be able to trust that you are working all things for my good and that my perspective is always towards you instead of what my eyes see in the natural which can lead me to a complaining and discontent heart. Keep my perspective on you at all times and in all things. Amen.
