"Do all things without grumbling and faultfinding and complaining"
- (Philippians 2:14, Amplified Bible).
In a construction site a worker made a major mistake. He was scared to tell my boss. Then he quickly put me at ease when he said, "Well, my dear, the fellow who never made a mistake never made anything." And we fixed my mistake without any fuss or bother.
How different are negative people who are constantly looking for pegs to hang their bitterness and negativity on. They complain about the weather, their boss, their health, and everything else they can think of to gripe about, and they never lack for ways to criticize others.
As John W. Stott said in his book, Christian Counterculture, "The censorious critic is the fault-finder who is negative and destructive towards other people and enjoys actively seeking out their failures. He puts the worst possible construction on their motives, pours cold water on their schemes, and is ungenerous towards their mistakes." Not very flattering to put it mildly.
Actually negative complainers are angry people. Instead of facing their negative feelings realistically and resolving them, they project them onto others and express them in hurtful and destructive ways. They are not nice people to be around. So, whenever you and I are being over-critical, let's examine our own heart to see what it is in us that needs to be faced, confronted and fixed.
"And then he [Jesus] told them, 'Go into all the world and preach [communicate] the Good News to everyone, everywhere.'" - Mark 16:15 (NASB).
Ron Clarke of Tasmania, Australia, asks, "Have you ever been to the south coast of England? If not, you may have seen pictures of it or can remember the wartime song 'There'll Be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover.' These white cliffs are composed of chalk. Chalk is formed by the shells of very tiny animals called 'Foraminifera', meaning 'hole-bearers'. They are so called because their small shells are pierced with little holes. Thousands of years ago there were trillions of these little creatures in the sea. As they died, their shells fell to the sea floor and formed a layer that gradually became thicker and thicker. Then followed an earthquake and pushed the layer upwards to form chalk cliffs.
"These cliffs are being destroyed by another small shellfish called a 'Piddock'. This creature can twist its shell rather like an awl or drill bit to make holes in the chalk. They attack the cliffs just above high water, and as the seas pound against the cliffs, they are weakened and eventually collapse in a landslide. A naturalist, writing about Piddocks, said that Britain is an island because of the work of Piddocks. Britain was once joined to the continent of Europe, and over thousands of years Piddocks have destroyed the chalk cliffs to form the English Channel.
"This piece of trivia highlights what great things [or destructive things] can
be achieved by very tiny creatures, and how much can result from very little. It would have cost billions to excavate the English Channel, but the humble Piddock did it alone."
We all have a part to play in God's service - no matter how small that may be. Your and my contribution is all a part of God's greater plan and a part of what he is doing in the world today. We can't improve on God's plan. The smartest thing to do is to get in on it. And a vital part of his plan, as Jesus commissioned each of us, is to "go into all the world and preach [communicate] the Good News to everyone, everywhere."
And that starts right where we are by being as Christ to every life we touch ...
and by joining hands and hearts with those who are reaching the lost with the
lifesaving gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.
