Do not complain, brothers and sisters, about one another,
that you may not be judged.
We are called to relinquish all pretext of being God ourselves. We are not in a position to critique anyone or anything. But when that idea is put in these words of Scripture we realize just how challenging that can be. How long can we go without complaining about someone? Yet when we complain we do not give God due thanks. When we complain we usurp his prerogative as judge. Judging may seem like a separate and more serious thing from complaining. Yet complaining about others is definitely a form of judgment. Even when we complain about things it is a problem because when we are complaining we aren't giving thanks. There is so much about which to give thanks that we ought never to have time to complain if we were good about thanksgiving.
We can't do this on our own strength. Our yes can only be a yes. It can't have supernatural power to make us give thanks. Our no is only a no, and cannot miraculously prevent complaints. No clever oaths or habit forming programs will solve this. We need grace to address the root cause: the hardness of our hearts.
Because of the hardness of your hearts
he wrote you this commandment.
Complaining seems normal to us. In many ways so does divorce. But that is because normal is defined in a world of people with hard hearts like ours. If we let God take our hearts of stone and give us new living hearts we can experience the way things are truly meant to be.
But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female.
For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother
and be joined to his wife,
and the two shall become one flesh.
The stuff about which we complain is still around. But somehow, through grace, we are now living in a new Eden, and notice less and less. We give thanks more and more.
For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he put our transgressions from us.
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