I mentioned yesterday that I should have kept my complaints to myself and just prayed through my situation, leaving it in God's hands.
I think I'm onto something. Today it occurred to me that there is Scriptural precedent. David's prayer from the cave recorded as Psalm 142 starts like this:
"I cry aloud to the LORD; I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy. I pour out before him my complaint; before him I tell my trouble. When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who watch over my way. In the path where I walk people have hidden a snare for me."
Anyway, my take away from Psalm 142 is that God isn't necessarily against the act of complaining, He just wants to be the sole audience for our complaints. It seems we can let the gripes fly at will, as long as they fly upwards.
There is one caveat, though, from my own personal experience: If you unload a bunch of complaints in God's direction, be prepared for a possible rebuke smackdown. (I guess Job and Jonah, among others, could also attest to this possibility.)
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