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Apples of Gold
Radio Script for
“Remove Complaining From Your Vocabulary”
Hello, I’m
“I never heard them complain.”
That’s what Elisabeth Elliot said after living with the Auca Indians in
“It was amazing to me how hard those Indians had to work,” she said. “The men and the women and the children had to work their heads off in order to survive. But I never heard them complain.”
They could put up with all kinds of things without making a fuss. “Indians never fuss,” she said. “In fact, there is hardly any vocabulary for complaining.”
Did you catch that? Not only were the Auca Indians not in the habit of complaining, they really didn’t even have the words for it.
On the other end of the spectrum are people who complain about everything.
It makes me think of Ebenezer Scrooge. Remember in “A Christmas Carol” when Scrooge’s nephew says “Merry Christmas”?
Now this is the mark of a professional complainer – they can even complain when someone says, “Merry Christmas!”
So the nephew says, “Merry Christmas!” and Scrooge says, “Merry Christmas? What right have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.”
And I love the nephew’s response. “Come, then. What right have you to be dismal? You’re rich enough.”
See, complaining has nothing to do with your circumstances.
Elisabeth Elliot has a great illustration of this in her own mother. She said, “My mother had come from a very wealthy family. They had two maids and a butler, so she never had to do any housework until she married my father, who was relatively poor by comparison.”
So her mother went from being rich with two maids and a butler, to being married to a man of average means. Then in the early 1900’s they became missionaries in
Elisabeth said, “They lived in a fifth-floor walk-up. My father had to lug all the water up the stairs and all the water back down the stairs after it had been used. And things were very, very tight when they were missionaries. And that’s where I was born,” said Elisabeth. “So it was always on my mind, ‘We don’t have anything.’”
“But,” she said, and now listen to this, “But there was never a word of complaint from my mother.”**
You talk about setting a great example for your children.
Now stop and think about that. What kind of example are you setting for your children? Do they hear you complain?
Does anyone hear you complain?
When you hear complaining, it’s like a dark cloud enters the room. Now think about what happens to children who have to live under that dark cloud. What kind of a home is that?
Philippians
Have you ever run across someone that you don’t dare ask them how they are doing? It’s because you know they will just start complaining.
And yet we are supposed to do everything without complaining. There should be no complaining about anything.
Now that doesn’t mean you close your eyes to problems. It doesn’t mean you can’t discuss problems or work on them. But that’s not the same as complaining about them.
Ephesians
Complaining never edifies, it never imparts grace.
Numbers 11:1 says this, “And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord: and the Lord heard it; and His anger was kindled…”
Complaining: people don’t want to hear it, and the Lord doesn’t want to hear it.
How to stop? First of all, pay attention to your own words. Are you complaining? Keep track of it.
Another thing, avoid people who complain. It’s too easy to join in. Hang around complainers and you will end up just like them.
Instead, work on Ephesians 4:29, “Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.”
We must remove complaining from our vocabulary.
We don’t want to be the complainers that bring the dark cloud in the room. Instead, we want to be like the people in Philippians 2 who don’t complain and become blameless and pure, children of God who shine like stars in the universe!
Comments?
E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.
May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m
Elisabeth Elliot talks about the Auca Indians: http://www.backtothebible.org/index.php/Gateway-to-Joy/Responses-to-Feelings.html
Elisabeth talks about her mother: http://www.backtothebible.org/index.php/Gateway-to-Joy/Women-Today.html
© 2009 The Arrow’s Tip
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(Proverbs 25:11 – “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.”)
Why “The Arrow’s Tip”? Each morning, after diligently seeking the Lord, I write Apples of Gold. Then before I release it to the public I pray one final prayer, “Lord, send forth your arrows.” I envision App
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