“Mama, can I have another cookie?” He asked me after he had already had two. “Do you not think you have had enough?” I replied. Judging by the look on his face after I asked him if he had had enough, I knew that he thought he needed more. That two cookies was not enough and he thought he deserved more. I could tell that his heart wasn’t content. He also saw that there were only a few warm, gooey, just out of the oven chocolate chip cookies left on the cookie sheet. He wanted to make sure he got one more before they were all gone. He had this desire to make sure he was satisfied before someone else ate the rest of the cookies. “We need to make sure we aren’t being greedy and eating all of the cookies before someone else gets to them.” I reminded him. “You know you are not the only one that wants a cookie so let’s make sure we save some for your siblings.” He thought about it for a second and decided that asking me again for a cookie was going to result in a no so after I finished what I had to say to him, he walked away and moved onto the next thing. That evening, after putting all of the children in bed, I walked to the pantry. I had a hidden supply of chocolate that I didn’t want them to know about. I had hidden it because I didn’t want to share it. It’s a special chocolate is what I had told myself when I found the perfect hiding spot. They don’t need to have any because they won’t appreciate it like I do. As I reached my hand in the bag to grab a piece, “Don’t be greedy” replayed in my head. The very thing I was trying to teach my own children is the very thing I myself was doing. How can I teach them to be and act a certain way when I am not willing to also do it? If I am okay with my own greed, how can I point out to them their greed? How often in my own life do I try to instruct them to live a certain way but yet refuse in my own life to live what I am teaching them?

It is so easy to look around at things in other peoples lives and compare ourselves to them. To see where they are and look pridefully in to my own life and think ‘Wow, I am so glad I am better than they are in this area.’ The truth is, if we get to the hearts of each and every person, we are all prideful people who will do whatever we want to please ourselves. We live in this self-care generation that actually tells people, especially young mothers, that they should do what fills their cup. We are actually breeding a selfish generation that will in turn raise another generation that is also selfish. Then we except people to do what we want them to do. Think about it, you go to a restaurant. The host seats you. You sit for a while with your menu and after spending a few minutes looking over it, you know exactly what you want to order. As you look up, you see that no one is approaching your table to take your order. You can see that in the back of the restaurant there are a group of people standing around talking. ‘Don’t they see that I am waiting?’ you think to yourself. It only takes a few minutes for you to become annoyed that someone isn’t coming to your table right away. Yes, they probably should have customer service and come take your order but they aren’t coming because they honestly just don’t care about serving others. They were in the middle of watching a video of their co worker going scuba diving with sharks and they didn’t want to miss the good part of the video. A shark was just about to come swimming by when you walked into the restaurant. They couldn’t stop watching now and decided that you will just have to wait until they are done with their video. It doesn’t matter if you are a paying customer, you will sit and wait until they are ready to take your order. But you are thinking to yourself ‘This is ridiculous, I am ready to order now. I am not going to sit here and wait. I cannot believe they are just standing around a phone and no one is coming over to me.’ We complain that we were made to wait and that our needs are not being met. Who is in the wrong here? They want to do what they want to do and you want what you want. Both are heart issues but whose heart are you in control of? Yours or theirs? You can’t control the hearts of others. You can only control your own heart but often we look at others and think that they are responsible to meet our needs when we want them to and when those needs aren’t met, we allow our attitudes and hearts become angry and annoyed. But also, how can we expect a generation that is being raised and told they need to do what brings them happiness, to even want to help others or to even be quick to go out of their way to serve? And how are we being an example of that in our own homes? How can I teach my children to not be greedy when greed resides in my own heart?

I have found that when the children wake up and I ask them how they slept, often the first words that come out of their mouth are words that are complaining. “My back hurts” or “I didn’t sleep good.” Why? Why do we start our days out complaining? But then I realized, I was doing it. I was setting that example before them. When I am asked how I slept, often I complain first thing. Maybe one of the children came down to our bed that night and kicked me all night long or maybe my sweet husband snored all night. So when someone asks me how I slept my response usually is “horrible because….” and I start filling in the blanks about why I slept so bad. Instead of thanking The Lord that I woke up with a beating heart or breath in my lungs, I chose to complain. My first response is always complaining. It’s like its engrained in my but that doesn’t justify my response. If complaining is modeled to my children then it’s just raising another generation of complainers. Oh how easy it is to complain about everything. It’s really hard to have a heart that is content and joyful. Think about things that you have complained about, even just this morning. Think about your day ahead. Have you complained about all that you need to do? I know I already have and it’s not a heart of contentment. It’s not the heart of Christ.

Philippians 2:14-17 says, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.” Read it again and again. Do ALLLLLL things without grumbling and disputing. Don’t just do somethings without it. Don’t just decide to pick and choose what you won’t complain about. Do it all without complaining. Do the laundry, without complaining. Wash the dishes, without grumbling. Take out the trash but don’t complain. Go to work without grumbling with all that you need to do. Wait in the restaurant longer than you expect you should wait but do it without complaining. Help the person who feel doesn’t deserve help but do it so you can be a light of Christ to them. This world doesn’t need more complainers. It doesn’t need more people who are greedy and self centered. It for sure doesn’t need more people that are just angry with life in general. There is enough of that around. What it needs is people, who only with the help and grace of Christ, who shine as lights in this dark world. When the power is out and all is dark, the person with the flash light is who everyone gravitates towards. They are the one who hold the key to keep the darkness away. Be the person holding the flashlight and let others come near you because you have what they need to see in the darkness. When there is light, the darkness isn’t as scary. Those without Christ have no hope but those with Him do! How much joy can be found in just having beating hearts. To wake up and have the room filled with oxygen. We slept and didn’t worry about it running out. We woke up and the oxygen that was in the room helped keep us alive last night. That’s something we can wake up and thank The Lord for instead of starting our day out complaining.

As we were driving to church on Sunday, we hit fog and it clouded our view. Mountains we knew were there because we see them week after week, couldn’t be seen because of the fog. But just because we couldn’t see them didn’t mean they weren’t there, our view of them was just clouded. It was a reminder to me that often our view of things can be clouded because of all the complaining that surrounds us. The evilness of this world can cloud our view and cause us to take our focus on the reality of life. Just because we couldn’t see the mountains didn’t mean they didn’t exist, just like just because those around us are complaining about things doesn’t mean that we need to allow their complaining take root and cause us to also complain. We need to focus on what we can see and what we know to be true. When we keep moving forward we see that what we thought wasn’t there is actually still there. Complaining can cloud our judgment. It can cause us to not see the mountains that surround us. Keep driving forward and get out of the fog. Stop complaining and allow The Lord to use you as a light to show others the mountains.