No Complaining!
It was the fall of 2020 and COVID had wreaked havoc on the entire world. With hundreds of thousands dead and more dying everyday, no country, no family, no one was left unaffected. The church we were part of at the time hosted a grief group, to support those of us who had lost loved ones during that year. In the very first meeting, the facilitators introduced us to the practice of lament and had us turn in our Bibles to several of the psalms of lament. I was shocked to find Psalm 77, 86, 88 and others without any highlighter color. Why would that surprise me? Because I have a practice of reading through the Bible each year and using a different color highlighter to emphasize words or phrases that were important to me during that year’s reading. Why would the psalms of lament be without the highlighter shades of pink, blue and yellow? It was a mystery until I read the content of the laments and found them full of complaints, brought against Holy God.
Growing up in the South, there was an unwritten but well-known 11th Commandment: Thou Shall Not Complain! I was raised to respect all authorities, to politely answer any question or command with, “Yes Ma’am” or “Yes Sir” and then get right on it. In fact, my mom had a rule in our family - if you have time to complain or whine about being “bored,” you have time to go clean a potty! I learned early on to keep my complaints to myself.
Without realizing it, I had adapted this commandment to not complain to my relationship with God. When I would read of David and other psalmists complaining to God, like in Psalm 22, which begins,
“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far from my deliverance and from my words of groaning? My God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, by night, yet I have no rest,”
I would find myself having a visceral reaction to their complaint. I was more than uncomfortable with complaining before God. Deep within, I felt that the lamenting psalmists were lashing out with accusations against God and I didn’t want to be anywhere in the vicinity when God reprimanded them and told them to “Go clean a potty!” It was as if, by refusing to highlight the complaints in the lamenting psalms, I was demonstrating a refusal to associate with those who would disrespect Father God by complaining, grumbling, demanding God to act on their behalf. And so these passages of Scripture - the living and active words of God - went unhighlighted, skimmed over, avoided.
As I began to read the psalms of lament and accept that God had good purposes in providing them as a template for my own frustrations with Him, His plan and His timing, I began to myself ask the questions I had buried deep within, “Why would you allow this to happen?” “What did I do wrong?” “How long is this pain going to last?” “Who is with me in this suffering? No one understands…” And what I found was a patient and compassionate Father God who said, “Come and tell me all about it. Cleaning the potty can wait.”
Blessings,
Gay B Brown