Looking at Life Thru God's Glasses: Grumbling or Gratitude

LOOKING AT LIFE THRU GOD’S GLASSES: GRUMBLING OR GRATITUDE – PART 4

When you look at people and events in life, you see either grumbling or gratitude. Human glasses often see grumbling – God’s glasses always see gratitude.

God sent Moses to lead the children of Israel out of bondage. During their long trek in the desert, the people developed an attitude of grumbling. “All the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, ‘If only we had died in Egypt!’” (Numbers 14:2) Moses kept before them the vision of God’s gratitude in leading them to the Promised Land.

An older woman had never flown on an airplane. Her family bought her a ticket for a short plane trip to a nearby city. She boarded the plane, found her seat, and settled in. Then she noticed that the upholstery was slightly soiled. Grumbling, she gathered her things and moved to another seat. Here, however, she became annoyed by the crying of an infant across from her, so she moved again to the rear of the cabin. Now she was grumbling that it was too hot and the sun was beaming through the window.

The woman was about to change seats for the third time when the flight attendants announced that the passengers should fasten their seatbelts in preparation for landing. The lady was shocked that the trip was so brief. She said, “Well, if I had known the trip would be so short, I wouldn’t have spent so much time grumbling.” Life is too short to grumble. Phillippians 2:14 says, “Do everything without grumbling.”

One day, ten lepers came to Jesus asking to be healed. I expect they spent much time and effort grumbling because leprosy was the most dreaded disease in that day. Lepers were total outcasts from society.

Jesus heard their request and healed all ten of them. When only one leper came back and thanked Jesus, He asked if there were not more who had been healed. The other nine didn’t understand gratitude. The one leper was healed of far more than leprosy – he was healed of grumbling and received the gift of gratitude! (Luke 17:11-19)

Think about this – the thing about which you are grumbling is probably the very thing that someone else is praying to receive. That kind of understanding and attitude can transform grumbling into gratitude.

When you get up in the morning, you have one of two choices – you can say, “Good morning, Lord.” Or you can say, “Good lord, it’s morning.” How you start the morning often determines how the day will go. Start out grumbling, and you’ll be looking through the human glasses of grumbling all day. You won’t feel well, people will not be nice, the traffic will be too congested, people at work will not appreciate you, you won’t earn enough money – the list goes on and on.

Or you can look through God’s glasses and be grateful because everything we have is a gift from Him. Gratitude turns whatever we have into enough! It’s not happy people who are grateful. It’s grateful people who are happy!

If you look through human glasses, you’ll live on Grumble Street. If you look at life through God’s glasses, you will move to Gratitude Avenue!