We understand this behavior and don't fault the youngster because he is so young. If a teen or adult had behaved the same way, we'd be appalled. You see, what a person complains about, or gets upset about, reveals his deepest concerns and priorities. Whereas a parent may be very upset about the financial condition of the family budget, a child is seemingly oblivious to any concern, except where it may concern or impact him specifically. The different levels of concern are due to the differing levels of maturity.

This fact holds true in spiritual matters. A person's level of spiritual maturity (or immaturity) is revealed as soon as he opens his mouth to complain. For our purposes here, please understand that by complaining, I mean any expression of discontent, whether legitimate or not. What type of complaints do Elders and preachers hear most of the time? I can only speak from a preacher's perspective, but I imagine that the Elders hear pretty much the same as I.

Do you think I/we hear some of the following? “Paul, your sermon didn't have quite enough scripture in it.” “Bro. Pryor, I wish you had taken more time in that sermon to explain what the scriptures mean.” “We should have more singing.” “I don't have enough to do, couldn't I help out more?” “The Elders are doing too much 'waiting on tables' instead of ministry in the word and prayer.” “We need more missionaries to support.” “We don't do enough service in the community.” “The Bible classes aren't long enough.” etc... Of course, you know that few, if any complaints of this sort come to the Elders, deacons or preacher.

What do we usually hear? Most of the time, the complaints are based in personal selfishness. “No one came to visit me”, or they came, but not often enough or didn't stay long enough, or stayed too long, etc.... “The church didn't help me when I was in need.” This person often fails to mention the fact nobody knew he was in need, or when help was offered it was refused because he was too proud to accept.

Often complaints focus on something in the public assembly. The song leader is too fast or too slow or too high or too low. The sermon... whew, is he ever long winded. The temperature isn't right, etc... I have not kept track over the years, but my guess is, that 95%+ of these types of complaints are one, illegitimate, and two based in personal selfishness. Moreover, they reflect a general lack of spiritual maturity.

When one becomes concerned about spiritual things, the trite little mundane issues most often complained about seem to disappear. What of my physical discomforts compared to the real and legitimate hardships of missionaries in third-world countries who often don't even have a building to worship in, let alone heating and air conditioning. Rarely have I ever heard of a televised movie or athletic event being too long. Can one say the same for Bible classes or our worship assemblies?

Have you set a new year's resolution to become more spiritually minded and mature in 2007. I have and I hope you have too. What kind of measure or barometer shall we use as an indicator of our progress? I think if we'd be mindful what what we complain about (or don't complain about) we'll have a pretty good measure of how we're doing.