The Whinery

The devotional I read today struck a chord with me. It reflected some thoughts that had been rattling around in my head over the past days/weeks. The topic of the devotional was about how God uses the pressures of life to improve us, improve our walk with Him, etc. The writer likened it to how grapes under pressure get the juice squeezed out, which can produce fine wine. It immediately hit me that too often I just produce a lot of whine! The writer actually mentions "whine" at the bottom of the article.

My whining is sometimes obvious to others, but usually I keep it to myself, so it outwardly manifests itself in other ways (irritability, impatience, indulgence, discouragement, etc).

This relates somewhat to "pain management" that I wrote about before. For example, over the past months I have had a pain in my hip joints. It comes and goes in intensity, but it is usually there when I get out of a chair, walk, sneeze, etc. For those who don't know me, I move fast. I walk fast, I jump from one thing to another, I get up, move, sit down-all very quickly, so I don't waste time in transit. My new-found pain slows me down a bit. I have a couple choices, other than medication. I can either complain about how unfair it is that someone with so much to do is hampered by pain, or I can be more sympathetic and patient when someone in front of me at the store is moving slowly. Maybe walking is painful for them. I can now relate to that. Now that scenario is less likely to increase my anxiety (I'm in a hurry and I can't get past this guy!) and more likely to prompt me to say a silent prayer for the struggling person, or perhaps give them a hand at getting something off the shelf and into their cart. Don't get me wrong, I'm still struggling with impatience, but the pain in my hip is helping with that!

I have been asking God over the past month or so to reveal to me the source of some of my persisting bad habits. I know that just trying to eliminate bad habits, without eliminating the source, is like cutting the leaves off weeds without pulling them out by the roots. So, I have asked again, and again, for God to show me the root of my bad habits. I think it is the whine.

I guess I need to ask forgiveness for all the whine I have produced, and ask for my eyes to be opened when given an opportunity to produce wine.

The photo was taken from my hotel room in a small town in the south part of Thailand. This is what these two guys did every day, the motorbikes are what they use to commute to their "office." Many, many people live this way. Many more live much worse. Shall I whine when a client provides me with a cobbled-up, noisy, uncomfortable office space, or shall I have sympathy for those who work and live every day in difficult, dirty, noisy, uncomfortable circumstances? Whine or wine. It is up to me as to which is produced.