What Gets you Grumbling?
Withered tree in Colorado Monument.
“So here it is: grumbling is preceded by the narrowing of our soul.”
Have you caught yourself grumbling lately? Maybe you felt a tinge of "grumble" at work, with your spouse, with friends. Perhaps your "grumble" is pronounced as you think about election day tomorrow. While grumbling can be gratifying in the short-term, I get really tired of it. Even more significant: nobody likes to be around people who grumble. Wouldn't be cool if we could put an end to grumbling?
To get there we have to look at the cause of our grumbling. Have you ever wondered what is behind our human propensity to grumble? As it turns out, the answer is pretty clear.
I came across this passage as I was studying this morning:
“From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.””
Do you see the little phrase in there: "became impatient"? This is what I turned my attention to and was surprised at what I found.
Two Hebrew words are used in this phrase. The first is the Hebrew word "Nephesh" (נֶפֶשׁ) and refers to the spirit or soul. I didn't expect this statement of obvious frustration to go so deep as to the soul. My impatience is usually right there on the surface of my life but here in Hebrew, the "impatience" is declared a condition of the soul.
What was even more surprising is the second word. It is the word "Qasur" (קָצוּר) and it means "shortened, narrowed, i.e., pertaining to being restricted in space relative to a comparatively wide or broad area" (Strongs).
So here it is: grumbling is preceded by the narrowing of our soul. It isn't caused by someone's actions nor circumstances around us as we would tend to believe. Rather we become grumblers when we have allowed our soul to become narrow, constricted and compact.
So what is the cure? The cure is to broaden our soul. Sounds easy but how? There is one answer I am certain about. The more I think about the hugeness of God's love, goodness and mercy, and thank Him for it, the broader my soul becomes. That works its way into everything. The more I live a thankful life and speak the words out loud, the more I will have a broadened soul.
Broaden your soul today by living, acting and expressing thankfulness first to God and then to everyone else around you!
