Grumblers

"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.