Quit Yer Belly Achin'

Why art thou cast down, O my soul?

And why art thou disquieted within me?

Hope thou in God: for I shall yet

praise him, who is the health of my

countenance, and my God.

Psalm 42:11

It has to be about 25 years ago or maybe a little more that our family was on our way to our usual vacation place...the Great Smoky Mountains. On one of those trips, we decided to take a different route, taking us through the Atlanta, Georgia area. We found a wonderful church there that we ended up visiting a few times after that during our vacation jaunts. We were disappointed on one occasion to find that there would be a special preacher on the Sunday night that we would be there. We were disappointed as we really liked the preaching of the pastor.

We ended up hearing someone that night that I believe to this day, our family remembers quite well. Getting to the pulpit was a task for the guest speaker. He was a neatly dressed young man, but had an obvious physical disability. His name is David Ring. As far as I know, David is still an evangelist and motivational speaker. His lovely wife and children were introduced and then he began his story.

David was born dead, but doctors worked on him and at the 18 minute mark, David came to life. When something like this happens with a newborn, there are often serious physical problems that develop and for David, such was true. He developed Cerebral Palsy, a very debilitating condition that brings with it more problems than one can believe. His speech was greatly affected as was his mobility. As David got into the testimony of his life, listeners didn't notice so much his awkward movements and slurred speech. His message kept all of us riveted on him because of the content of his sermon.

In his testimony, David basically went through his difficult life and the goodness of God all along the way. There wasn't one word of complaint from David. One of his basic theories was that you can look around and always find someone worse off than you. I liked that he spoke of broken things and how we throw away broken things, but God never does. His words were inspiring and his spirit, contagious. He spoke of people's quickness to complain about the smallest of things and that even with the big obstacles of life, he kept telling us over and over to “Quit yer belly achin'.”

One of the first places in Scripture we find the problem of “belly achin'” is in the book of Exodus where God's people found themselves in the wilderness after being led out of the land of Egypt. Things hadn't been all that great in Egypt, but suddenly in the wilderness, the people found themselves away from any securities they had known there. Of all the sins that could be committed at the time, the one that upset God the most was the murmuring, grumbling and yes, belly achin' of the people. Their negative complaints revealed one huge thing...these people didn't trust their Father who had done so much for them and Who had proven Himself faithful to them. As a result, God allowed his people to wander in the wilderness much longer than they would have desired.

Jesus faced complainers as well. Jesus had just been teaching to a crowd of people. He had in part been explaining who He was and His Father's role in Jesus' ministry. John 6:41 says: “The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.” They murmured a little more and then in verse 43, He responded: “Jesus therefore answered and said unto them, Murmur not among yourselves.” If Jesus made that statement to Jews back then, what makes us think He will be pleased with our murmuring and griping today?

Paul speaking of the Israelites says to the Corinthians in I Corinthians 10:10

Neither murmur ye, as some of them

also murmured, and were destroyed of

the destroyer.

Let's look at Jude 1:16 as he speaks of the ungodly:

These are murmurers, complainers, walking

over their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh

great swelling words, having men's persons in

admiration because of advantage.

So what do we do with this thing of griping and belly achin' that can so easily become a part of us?

1. Recognize complaining when we hear it coming out of our own mouths and stop it.
2. Confess murmuring as sin, for most of it comes from the sin of ingratitude.
3. Whatever our problems, give them to the Lord...He's in charge of everything anyway.
4. We must count our blessings...for many people in the world, we would be considered rich people.
5. Forsake complaining...no one really wants to hear it and it doesn't honor God in any way.
6. God's consequences for the Israelites was to wander aimlessly in the wilderness for many years. I don't want to be put in a wilderness for a time because of my spirit of discontent.
   
   What's the answer? Let me close with Philippians 2:13-15a and 4:6:
   

For it is God which worketh in you both to

will and to do of his good pleasure.

Do all things without murmurings and

disputings:

That ye may be blameless and harmless,

the sons of God, without rebuke...

Be careful for nothing; but in everything

by prayer and supplication with

thanksgiving let your requests be

made known unto God.

Dear Father...forgive my tendency to gripe and bellyache about things that really make very little difference in the whole scope of life. Keep me positive and looking upward with a positive and grateful spirit. I love You and thank You for Your goodness in my life. Amen.