No Complaining Allowed

by Brandy Webb

Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine as lights in the world as you hold forth the word of life, in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.—Philippians 2:14-16

What would the world be like if we just followed verse 14? “Do everything without complaining or arguing.” Other versions say murmuring and disputing, grumblings and arguing, complaining without division, etc. Just think how awesome life would be if people just stopped complaining and arguing with each other. No more contentions, no more strife, no more useless disagreements, no more muttering under breath when someone asks you to do something that you really don’t want to have to do. Life would be downright simpler without us complaining and arguing about it.

If you are a parent, just imagine when asking your children to do their chores, they actually responded with a smile and a willing spirit to do what you asked instead of murmuring/complaining under their breath or just outright arguing with you about why they didn’t want to do it right then. The home life would be so much more peaceful and complete if we there was no arguing, disputing, complaining, and grumblings. 

Well, God wants to have children that do just that. They work together as a family without disputes, complaints, murmuring, gossip, contentions, and strife. He desires his children instead to have a willingness to serve, loving compassion, forgiving hearts, peaceful fruit, joyful assistances, and more. Why? Because it makes us “blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and perverse generation” (emphasis mine), which in turn makes us “shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15). Who doesn’t want to stand out as a light in the darkness that surrounds us? Who doesn’t want to be a child of God instead of a child of the world? 

I hope we all do. If we do, then we’d better start examining ourselves to make sure that our lives reflect what God wants us to reflect. We do not need to look at each other; we need to look at ourselves. Do we complain when someone asks for our help while we are swamped with our own tasks and duties? Do we mutter under our breath when we are, once again, having to clean up someone else’s mess? Do we argue with each other because we may see something differently in the Bible than they see it? Or, better yet, do we add to the contentions between ABCCOG because we go to XYZCOG?

We do not all have to agree. We do not all have to go to the same church. However, we do have to act like God’s family. We do have to stop complaining and arguing. That is what the world does when they can’t see “eye to eye.” They complain. They shout. They argue. They dispute. They cause contentions. They cause strife.

We are to be different. We are to be set apart in this perverse world. Can the world tell the difference between Christians and everyone else? If not, then we have a problem. I believe that if we adhere to this one scripture as a stepping stone to the many scriptures in the Bible that tell us how to walk in Christ, we will be heading in the right direction. Oh, what a wonderful example we can be of what love really is if we just stopped complaining and arguing.