What Pushes Your Buttons? Five Names You Don’t Want To Be Called And Three Ways To Stop the Labels

My doorbell won’t work. The whole mechanism is only a year old, so what the heck?? Is that why it was on sale for $29.99? Because retailers know you will be buying a new one every year? Which slowly adds up to a gazillion dollars?

And The Preacher cut the cable because he decided it was too expensive. So now we have some sort of app system for the TV… and rabbit ears. Not that I ever watch much TV anyway, but I can’t even watch new episodes of HGTV without some sort of a code, which I have no idea… And it makes me grouchy when I can’t figure out things in the blink an eye. So there’s that…

We humans have a propensity toward discontentment. So much to grump about. I am a
glass-half-full kind of gal, but the pull of negativity is an easy roll down a slippery slope.
A suitcase full of gloom forever lurks in the shadows.

So at what point do I morph from a Discontented Dora to a:
1. Grumbling Greta
2. Belly-aching Beth
3. Complaining Clara
4. Whining Whitney
5. Malcontent Maleficent… Eek!

I don’t want to be associated with any of those names, but there are so many things to be petulant about. Some careless twit dinged my door in the Wal-Mart parking lot. I stepped on a crevice and scraped the leather off the heel of my favorite boots. The fierce traffic made me late for my doctor’s appointment.

So as we prepare to stuff our face with turkey, and pour a niagara of gravy over a glut of mashed potatoes, do we stop our whirr long enough to be stand-still-drop-to-your-knees-thankful? Or are we just taking for granted another year of abundance and excess?

If we slow a half-sec and live thankful for the life we’ve been gifted, and the blessings that surround us as God’s children, discontentment will fly out the door faster than a Christmas eve shopper.

“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” 1 Thessalonians 5:18

It is easy to look down our noses at the whiney nature of the Israelites. Rather than being thankful they weren’t emaciated shadows in the wilderness, they wailed over their full stomaches, “If only we had meat to eat!…We have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna!” Numbers 11:4-5

Talk about Drama Queens…
But are we so different?

Discontentment is a slap in God’s face. He gives us everything we need. And in return we give him a mouth turned down and a microscope aimed at the fly in the ointment. We get so caught up in navel-gazing we miss the rainbow hole in the clouds.

“Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life.” Philippians 2:14-16

What is causing your discontentedness?
A deep seated insecurity?
Chronic comparisons that kill your soul?

Ok I’m going to be bossy now like the oldest child that I am—
1. Stop looking at magazines full of things you can’t have, and longing after the FaceBook and Instagram feeds. Yes other people’s vacations are fabulous, but the illusions of family harmony, and perfect marriages are just that…illusions.
2. Stop wishing your life away. Don’t assume the grass is greener elsewhere, it’s not. Live life to the fullest by embracing the blessings God has laid out before you, like new clothes on the first day of school.

3. Give thanks daily and shine like the star God created you to be.

“You, Lord, give perfect peace to those who keep their purpose firm and put their trust in you.” Isaiah 26:3

What more could we ever want?

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