Today's Devotional
April 24, 2009
Subject: Whining Is Not Praying
Numbers 11:18-20 "And say thou unto the people, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow, and ye shall eat flesh: for ye have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore the LORD will give you flesh, and ye shall eat. Ye shall not eat one day, nor two days, nor five days, neither ten days, nor twenty days; But even a whole month, until it come out at your nostrils, and it be loathsome unto you: because that ye have despised the LORD which is among you, and have wept before him, saying, Why came we forth out of Egypt?"
I hear a lot of it from my children at home and I hear a lot of it from my children at school. They whine about homework, having to clean up, not having the right teacher, not having the right clothes, not having the right friends and then when the have the right friends, they whine about what their friend did to them. Kids find tons of things to whine about, but I realized that we do it often as adults also and sadly, we do it with God. What I further realized is that sometimes we call it prayer though. We say, "take your burdens to the Lord and leave it there," but instead I think we sometimes prefer to complain rather than pray.
When we fail to see that God uses every circumstance to our benefit, then we often pray about how we would like things or how great things used to be. That's what the Israelites did after their Exodus. They complained frequently about what God hadn't done for them and then each time He did something for them, they were temporarily comforted until they found something else to complain about.
God always hears us, but it's not always prayer He hears; sometimes it's just whining. So remember today, just because you got what you wanted doesn't mean that God heard your prayers, He could have also heard your whining. See God in your current circumstance and thank Him for it and pray rather than whine.
Carlen
