{"id":16012,"date":"2026-01-04T20:44:55","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T01:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/?p=16012"},"modified":"2026-01-05T20:49:29","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T01:49:29","slug":"contentment-versus-complaining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/16012\/contentment-versus-complaining\/","title":{"rendered":"Contentment versus complaining"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Hi Pastor John,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The Spirit woke me up this morning.\u00a0 This is what was said, &#8220;Don&#8217;t complain about anything that I have given to you.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I sat on it a while today while I was reading in Kings\/Chronicles during the\u00a0time of the\u00a0divided kingdom.\u00a0\u00a0A few thoughts came to me about how important it is for each of us to be happy and live the truth that God has given to our hearts.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">There were two stories that stood out to me:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In Numbers 20, the Israelites grumbling about wanting to go back to Egypt because it had better resources (food, water, etc.). After all that God had done for them: all the miracles, the food, the water&#8230;they were complaining!\u00a0They had forgotten where they had come from and didn&#8217;t believe God\u00a0for\u00a0where\u00a0He was\u00a0taking them.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">This generation hurt themselves by complaining.\u00a0Because of their complaints, God cursed them and they were never allowed to see Canaan&#8217;s land.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">But also, they provoked Moses&#8217; anger so much that he struck the rock for water instead of\u00a0speaking to it\u00a0asGod\u00a0had\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So, the beloved prophet of God could not enter into Canaan&#8217;s land,\u00a0either.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">In 2 Kings 5, the story about Naaman and Gehazi, Elisha&#8217;s servant.\u00a0Naaman was a humble man with great power in Syria but still willing to receive counsel when he was hesitant to obey Elisha after\u00a0Elisha\u00a0told Naaman to wash in the Jorden River to heal his leprosy.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">When Gehazi went to Naaman and lied to him about Elisha wanting money for the\u00a0sons of the\u00a0prophets, he was effectively complaining about not having enough earthly wealth.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Ultimately, Gehazi wasn&#8217;t happy with the life that God had given him with Elisha.\u00a0Elisha!\u00a0\u00a0A doubly blessed prophet of God who followed in Elijah&#8217;s footsteps and God had blessed him for it (with earthly and heavenly riches).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Because of this,\u00a0Gehazihurt God and Elisha&#8217;s hearts. Elisha lost someone who was close to him and Gehazi (along with his lineage) was cursed with leprosy.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">So, the negative impact of complaining about what God has given us is always about more than only you and your circumstances.\u00a0\u00a0If you&#8217;re complaining \u2013 either through deeds and\/or in your heart \u2013 you&#8217;re hurting more than yourself.\u00a0\u00a0You&#8217;re saying to God, &#8220;I&#8217;m not happy with the life you&#8217;ve given to me.&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0The people around you can feel your discontentment, so why would they want to be like you?\u00a0\u00a0You&#8217;re unhappy!\u00a0\u00a0I don&#8217;t think I would have followed Jesus if he was constantly grumbling about why God had sent him down to earth to die for our sins!\u00a0\u00a0And Jesus went through the worst of it for us; so, ask God to help you be content in the situations He has given you as opposed to complaining about what you want instead.\u00a0\u00a0It makes me think of that verse from 1Timothy 6:6: &#8220;But godliness with contentment is an exceptional means of gain.&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0The gain here is happiness, peace and joy in the holy Ghost!\u00a0\u00a0The heavenly gains!\u00a0\u00a0I don&#8217;t want to desire earthly silver and gold when I can support and encourage the Elishas of God&#8217;s kingdom instead.\u00a0\u00a0We want our Christ contentment light to shine to support each other!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">I don&#8217;t know how to end this email, exactly.\u00a0\u00a0I knew what God was showing me about my own life and what to change, so I was thankful for that knowledge.\u00a0\u00a0But, the bigger realization of this made me cry out to God to help me understand Him more and ask Him to please keep us humble to accept\/see where God is in all situations.\u00a0\u00a0Life\u00a0can be tough sometimes; we really go through things in this life that hurt deeply and are confusing.\u00a0\u00a0But, we can be happy and content in knowing that God has been and always will be God to us&#8230;and for us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Wendy<\/span><\/p>\n<p>=========<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Hi John,<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\"> I was reading Deuteronomy this morning, and thought the same thing as Wendy.\u00a0 It cost Israel greatly to grumble in the wilderness. I believe the old man (our flesh) seeks to have something to complain about.\u00a0 Reminds me of what the Spirit has been talking to me about too (which I sang about recently):\u00a0 &#8220;I&#8217;m fine, you&#8217;re fine, everything is fine.&#8221;\u00a0 I want to be careful to put that into action. We have so much&#8230;.. Thank you Wendy for the reminder.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Gary<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hi Pastor John, The Spirit woke me up this morning.\u00a0 This is what was said, &#8220;Don&#8217;t complain about anything that I have given to you.&#8221; I sat on it a while today while I was reading in Kings\/Chronicles during the\u00a0time of the\u00a0divided kingdom.\u00a0\u00a0A few thoughts came to me about how important it is for each [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-netmail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16012"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16012"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16014,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16012\/revisions\/16014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pastorjohnshouse.com\/mailbag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}