Having a 2 year old in our house means hearing whining quite often. Whenever we find him whining we discipline him, or we don't give him what he is whining for so that he can learn the art of patience and thankfulness for what he does have.
One day his whining was particularly bad and no matter how many time outs we did it just didn't seem to stop. He would just follow me around the house and whine for my attention, whine for the toys he wanted, and whine for whatever he didn't have, it seemed. When all of a sudden I looked down at him and realized....
this is what I look like to God when I don't get what I want, when I want it.
WOAH....was that a wake up call for me! Here I was getting so impatient that our 2 year old wasn't learning patience, getting so frustrated that he just didn't appreciate what he did have, getting fed up with his discontentment when he had everything he needed. And getting especially annoyed when he asked for something and I would tell him he had to do something first (like clean up) before he would get it and he would sit there and whine for it. If only he would obey when I told him to do what he needed to do first then he would have it by now!
How many times is that us in the eyes of God. He told us to do something, yet we continue to whine/complain/be ungrateful when we don't get it when we want, or the way we want. How many times when God is just trying to work on our character and build patience, endurance or a thankful heart in us do we just continue to whine.
Thank God that He is patient with us, and faithful still! My prayer is that I recognize when I start to whine/complain so I can have a thankful heart and receive what he is doing in me!
Philippians 2:14 "Do everything wihtout complaining or arguing..." is what you are going to hear if you walk in our door these days.
7 comments:
Amen Baby. The no whining zone is the place I want to be spiritually and naturally. Or is there really any difference. If anyone has tips on how to get the dog to stop whining we are wide open.
What a great reminder for all of us. Isn't it amazing how the Lord uses little children to teach us so much about our own sin?
I had an epiphany like that one day when driving to school. It was like, "wow, my bad GOD." I imagine as little mini-me's start arriving, I'll have more.
Ross, I think there's a certain post by an Angel Juni Rios that has some remedies for dealing with animals. Might want to give it a try.
What a great moment... I have plenty of those every day, and it's so nice when I actually see the lesson it it! :) thanks for this great post!
My head smarts where Amy just smacked me in the face with wisdom!
Wow Amy, this was great! Awesome revelation. I'm definately a whiner, man, big time. Patience is a virtue difficult to attain for me, and I refuse to pray for it b/c my mom used to always say: "pray for patience and he'll send you tests".
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