Complainers

Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life--in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing. --Philippians 2:14-16

I've held three different jobs since I finished college, and I've noticed something about office culture. Complainers seems seem to be drawn to each other like flies to flypaper. There is something about that negative spirit that draws other negative people into a circle with each other. These people gather by the water cooler in the break room and complain about their work, their bosses, their clients, their paychecks, etc., etc. It's so easy to get caught up in that pattern of complaint that the people in the complaining clique forget how to speak to each other about positive things. The negative energy that surrounds their complaints draws unsuspecting people into circle of griping and repels the positive but alert among the staff. I've watched it happen from the inside; I am a complainer.

Call it venting or shooting the breeze, but complaining is an addiction. Those who engage in it, develop a need to continue complaining just to get through the workday. We wouldn't know what to do if we didn't have each other to gripe to. We may shake with excess negative energy that we have no way to release into the atmosphere. We imagine that without the complaining outlet, we would have so much retained negativity that we will explode. Fortunately, it never comes to that because complainers are found in abundance in every office where I've worked, so there is always an outlet for griping.

Interestingly, I, like many of my fellow gripers, claim to be Christian even in the midst of all this complaining. An outsider would not know who I am. I get so caught up in the whining that I forget I'm called to a higher standard. I'm called to do everything without complaining, even the miserable task of working. I'm called to be different from the crooked and depraved generation in which I live. But as a complainer, I am the same. I'm called to shine like a star holding out the word of life rather than the word of complaint. It's hard to shine when a dark negative cloud follows you around for 8 hours a day. For the sake of my witness to the world, I must slough off the negativity from my mouth and be filled with God's word and God's spirit rather than complaints. Life is too short and my time here is too valuable for me to waste it with negativity, no matter how powerfully I'm drawn to the negative words I hear around me.

Posted by Kim at May 16, 2006 09:09 AM