\u00a0James 5:9\u00a0 “Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The judge is standing at the door!”<\/p>\n\n\n
I have learned the hard way how destructive “grumbling” can be. The Greek word is “stenazete” and Strong’s gives the following definition: “to complain, to groan, expressing grief, anger, or desire … to sigh, murmur.” It’s running people down behind their backs. It’s throwing a pity party for yourself while blaming someone else for your circumstances. It’s taking pot shots at another person’s reputation when they are not present to defend themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n
It’s setting yourself up as the judge and making your “righteous” pronouncements. And it is flat out evil.<\/p>\n\n\n
(And, no, that is not too strong of a word.)<\/p>\n\n\n
And here’s how I know it is evil: Imagine looking over your shoulder in mid-grumble against a co-worker or family member or stranger and spotting The Judge standing at the door, listening in. Do you think you might shut your mouth real quick?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
As for me, I think there’s an excellent chance I would shut my mouth REAL quick.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Anyway, all this is to confess that I have been trying to be positive and grumble-free (especially in light of what has been done to me in the past), but today I failed and I know I should have kept my mouth shut. I regret complaining and my anger has passed. Instead of grumbling, I should have simply prayed and trusted that God would rectify the situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Tomorrow I will do better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0James 5:9\u00a0 “Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The judge is standing at the door!” I have learned the hard way how destructive “grumbling” can be. The Greek word is “stenazete” and Strong’s gives the following definition: “to complain, to groan, expressing grief, anger, or desire … to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4378,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4377\/revisions\/4378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}