Lovely complaining
by | Posted on August 10th in Pastors thoughts
The Gospel of the risen Jesus gives Christians a reason to do something that I think is radically different to our surrounding culture… its “lovely complaining”.
See, I’ve been forgiven by Jesus’ death in my place. He doesn’t hold my sin against me, he doesn’t hold it over my head. And yet, he does want me to repent and change. My sin grieves his Spirit (Eph 4:30), but it doesn’t destroy our relationship. That’s the amazing thing about the gospel!
This amazing way God has treated us should shape the way we treat each other, especially when we’ve been grieved and feel like complaining. So how does the gospel tell us how to approach complaining?
- Forgive the person or people who’ve angered you. Until you’ve done this, it will be pretty dangerous to think you can deal rationally with someone. In fact, until you’ve done this, you really have an issue with God that needs to be worked out. Col 3:13 says “Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”
- Desire the best for the person or people who’ve grieved you. That’s what God’s done for us in the gospel isn’t it? Rom 5:10 says “when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son“. God has decided to to the best for us, his enemies, and he wants us to do the same… Matt 5:44 “But I tell you: Love your enemies“. We need to stop and think, “What would be the best thing for this person who’s hurt me? How could I genuinely help them?”
- If you’ve put your own grievances aside, and you still think it would be for their good;
- Pray for humility and the ability to forgive and think the best of the other’s motives.
- Go and inform them what’s happened, and that you’ve forgiven them
- Ask them to correct any assumptions or facts you might have wrong
- Suggest to them how it might have been corrected
See, this is “lovely complaining”. This is “complaining” stripped of all its bitterness and malice and selfishness (Eph 4:31). This is “complaining” couched in love for the other and concern to view others as more important than yourself (Phil 2:3). Its lovely!
Can you see how this type of complaining is so very different to how the world complains? Just think for a second about how the world complains:
- “I have a problem with person X, but rather than tell them, I’ll tell person Y so they’ll be on my side.”
- “I will hold your error over your head until you repent/change/begin/do what I say”
- “I won’t tell you that I’m upset - I’ll just ignore you and be short to you until you realise what you’ve done (a.k.a. “the silent treatment”)
- “I will only tell you via anonymous email/letters that I’m upset, so you have no way of restoring our relationship unless you do what I say”
These are really sad ways of dealing with grief aren’t they? Its even sadder when, as Christians, we resort to these methods, when we have such a wonderful pattern in the gospel of dealing with each other in love.
Eph 4:15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.
A question remains though… how should we lovingly deal with people who use poor patterns of complaining?
Tags: complain, conflict, forgiveness
August 23rd, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Dave
I think you have raised some great points here - particularly how you have looked at this from the point of God’s forgiveness and your challenge to behave differently to the world and base your actions upon love.
One suggestion i have to make however is that perhaps when raising this “point of complaint” with the other person, that you first ask them for clarification/correction before you tell them that you forgive them. It is possible that after hearing their point of view that you might realise that you have nothing to forgive and also helps convey that you are willing to listen to them.