Do All Things Without Grumbling or Complaining

We were hit with quite a bit of rain all day yesterday and throughout the night, and I woke up to the sound of tree specialists cutting down a few of the neighbor's trees at 7:30 AM. I'll be honest: I wasn't too fond of the disturbance. I mean, I wasn't going to whip up a storm, ranting about how they could have waited an hour to start waking people up, but a few extra minutes of sleep would've been nice.

After I went downstairs, I saw the news about the 8.9 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan. It was a bit painful to watch the footage of the conditions and the flooding as I was eating my breakfast. I can't really express my thoughts and feelings about the situation over there because I'm still in shock. But one thing it made me realize was how fortunate I am to be living in the US. Even though life can be difficult at times, but sometimes we never think how lucky we are to be living in a country where there is much freedom, humanity, and fewer natural disasters - not to say that there aren't natural disasters that happen, they just don't wipe out a portion of the country. And I thought about how I woke up this morning semi-grumbling about the tree company and how I should be more grateful that we aren't in a situation where the east coast is completely flooded or tore down by a hurricane or activists are causing riots and chaos in Washington, D.C.

It reminds me of this month's Verse of the Month (that the Religious Education Department at Elizabeth has recently implemented), and then some:

Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” (Philippians 2:14-15a)

Little annoyances and disturbances happen in life. Sometimes things don't go as planned, but that's how life is. I don't feel that complaining is necessarily a bad thing, but it really depends on context and situation. But if one is always complaining about big and little things, then that can be a problem. It doesn't really shine the light of Jesus now, does it? Instead, being thankful is a better option, because there is a lot to be thankful for.