August 22: Complaints
Isaiah 44:1–45:13; Luke 17:11–18:8; Job 10:1–10
Complaining can be automatic. We complain about the weather, our children, our jobs. And we might do it for any number of reasons—even something as trivial as to keep a conversation going. Although we might complain lightly, we still betray something about our hearts. We assume that we are owed something—that we are entitled.
We might readily admit this. We might freely say that this should not be our posture before people or before God. But Job challenges our stereotype of the complainer. What can we learn from his complaints? In his outcries, we find someone struggling to understand his situation before God. He prays, “My inner self loathes my life; I want to give vent to my complaint; I want to speak out of the bitterness of my inner self. I will say to God, ‘You should not condemn me; let me know why you contend against me’ ” (Job 10:1–2). He repeats and recasts his elevated and prolonged complaints in surprising similes: “Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese?” (Job 10:10).
Although his boldness and forcefulness might be shocking, we also understand how someone dealing with pain and grief might wrestle with these thoughts.
The book of Job ends with God silencing Job and his friends. Job’s demeanor changes when God sets everyone’s perspective right. But how should we understand these passages? Should we complain like Job when we feel frustrated by the disappointments in life?
Job’s complaints stemmed from a sense of loss—a realization that something was not right with the current state of affairs. This doesn’t mean that all complaints are motivated by complete ingratitude. Sin, loss, injustice, hurt, and evil in the world are not reasons to dismiss our cares. Indeed, God is concerned about our cares, and He wants to know them.
But the things we wrestle with should first be brought to God. We should bring our complaints to Him, ready to have our hearts and minds examined by His Word. Not only is He very concerned about our circumstances, but He also knows our hearts and can judge our complaints rightly. He can comfort us in sorrow and provide us with all that we need. Jesus died to set right the wrong things with the world, so we can be completely assured of His love and care for us.
How are you responding to events in your life? How can you bring your complaints to Him?
Rebecca Van Noord
Barry, John D., and Rebecca Kruyswijk. Connect the Testaments: A One-Year Daily Devotional with Bible Reading Plan. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2012. Print.
Morning, August 22 Go To Evening Reading
“I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him that I am sick of love.”
—Song of Solomon 5:8
Such is the believer's language panting after present fellowship with Jesus; he is sick for his Lord. Gracious souls are never perfectly at ease except they are in a state of nearness to Christ, for when they are away from him, they lose their peace. The nearer to him, the nearer to the perfect calm of heaven; the nearer to him, the fuller the heart is, not only of peace, but of life, and vigor, and joy, for these all depend on constant intercourse with Jesus. What the sun is to the day, the moon is to the night, and the dew is to the flower, such as Jesus Christ. What bread is to the hungry, clothing to the naked, the shadow of a great rock to the traveler in a weary land, such is Jesus Christ to us; and, therefore, if we are not consciously one with him, little marvel if our spirit cries in the words of the Song, “I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, tell him that I am sick of love.” This earnest longing after Jesus has a blessing attending it: “Blessed are they that do hunger and thirst after righteousness”; and therefore, supremely blessed are they who thirst after the Righteous One. Blessed is that hunger since it comes from God: if I did not have the full-blown blessedness of being filled, I would seek the same blessedness in its sweet bud-pining in emptiness and eagerness till I am filled with Christ. If I may not feed on Jesus, it shall be next door to heaven to hunger and thirst after him. There is a hallowedness about that hunger since it sparkles among the beatitudes of our Lord. But the blessing involves a promise. Such hungry ones “shall be filled” with what they are desiring. If Christ thus causes us to long after himself, he will certainly satisfy those longings; and when he does come to us, as come he will, oh, how sweet it will be!
Go To Morning Reading Evening, August 22
“The unsearchable riches of Christ.”
—Ephesians 3:8
My Master has riches beyond the count of arithmetic, the measurement of reason, the dream of imagination, or the eloquence of words. They are unsearchable! You may look, and study, and weigh, but Jesus is a greater Saviour than you think him to be when your thoughts are at the greatest. My Lord is more ready to pardon than you to sin, more able to forgive than transgress. My Master is more willing to supply your wants than you are to confess them. Never tolerate the low thoughts of my Lord Jesus. When you put the crown on his head, you will only crown Him with silver when he deserves gold. My Master has riches of happiness to bestow upon you now. He can make you lie down in green pastures and lead you beside still waters. There is no music like the music of his pipe when he is the Shepherd, and you are the sheep, and you lie down at his feet. There is no love like his; neither earth nor heaven can match it. To know Christ and to be found in him—oh! This is life, joy, and marrow and fatness, wine on the lees well refined. My Master does not treat his servants churlishly; he gives to them as a king giveth to a king; he gives them two heavens—a heaven below in serving him here, and a heaven above in delighting in him forever. His unsearchable riches will be best known in eternity. He will give you on the way to heaven all you need; your place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks, your bread shall be given you, and your waters shall be sure, but it is there, there, where you shall hear the song of them that triumph, the shout of them that feast, and shall have a face-to-face view of the glorious and beloved One. The unsearchable riches of Christ! This is the tune for the minstrels of earth and the song for the harpers of heaven. Lord, teach us more and more of Jesus, and we will tell out the good news to others.
Spurgeon, C. H. Morning and Evening: Daily Readings. London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1896. Print.
August 22nd
“I indeed … but He.”
I indeed baptize you with water … but He … shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire. Matthew 3:11.
Have I ever come to a place in my experience where I can say—“I indeed … but He”? Until that moment does come, I will never know what the baptism of the Holy Ghost means. “I indeed” am at an end, I cannot do a thing: “but He” begins just there—He does the things no one else can ever do. Am I prepared for His coming? Jesus cannot come as long as there is anything in the way, either goodness or badness. When He comes, am I prepared for Him to drag into the light every wrong thing I have done? It is just there that He comes. HE WILL PUT HIS FEET wherever I know I am unclean; wherever I think I am clean, He will withdraw them. Repentance does not bring a sense of sin but a sense of unutterable unworthiness. When I repent, I realize that I am utterly helpless; I know all through me that I am not worthy even to bear His shoes. Have I repented like that? Or is there a lingering suggestion of standing up for myself? The reason God cannot come into my life is that I am not through into repentance.
“He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire.” John does not speak of the baptism of the Holy Ghost as an experience but as a work performed by Jesus Christ, “He shall baptize you.” The only conscious experience those who are baptized with the Holy Ghost ever have is a sense of absolute unworthiness.
“I indeed” was this and that;” but He” came, and a marvelous thing happened.
Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest: Selections for the Year. Grand Rapids, MI: Oswald Chambers Publications; Marshall Pickering, 1986. Print.
August 22
He … began to wash the disciples’ feet
John 13:5
We forget that Jesus Christ is the same today when He is sitting on the throne, as He was yesterday when He trod the pathway of our world. And in this forgetfulness how much we miss! What He was, that He is. What He said, that He says. The Gospels are simply specimens of the life that He is ever-living; they are leaves torn out of the diary of His unchangeable Being. Today He is engaged in washing the feet of His disciples, soiled with their wilderness journeyings. Yes, that charming incident is having its fulfillment in thee, my friend, if only thou dost not refuse the lowly loving offices of Him whom we call Master and Lord, but who still girds Himself and comes forth to serve. And we must have this incessant cleansing if we would keep right. It is not enough to look back to a certain hour when we first knelt at the feet of the Son of God for pardon; and heard Him say, “Thy sins, which are many, are all forgiven.” We need daily, hourly cleansing—from daily, hourly sin.
F. B. Meyer
Hardman, Samuel G., and Dwight Lyman Moody. Thoughts for the Quiet Hour. Willow Grove, PA: Woodlawn Electronic Publishing, 1997. Print.
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